A Boy's Life
by Lucretia Angulus
Summary: Sakura decides to sneak out from going to boarding school for etiquette. Instead, she ends up disguised as a boy in an all boys school, with the help of Naruto. But what happens when that one special person finds out the truth? [SasuXSaku][AU]
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** **I don't own Naruto. :\, sucks right?**

**Chapter One**

Sakura flung her pillow against her bedroom wall, narrowly missing the vase filled with wilting roses. Her fingers were twitching madly.

"Mom, _please_ don't do this!" Sakura glared at her mother, rage in her eyes.

"But Sakura, honey, you need to learn how to be a _lady_. It requires elegance, manners, being—"

"Mom. Stop. I don't need lessons on how to be a stuck up bitch!"

"Sakura! _Language_! Lady's do _not_ cuss!"

"Okay, fine! But I'm still not going to a boarding school just to learn manners."

"Oh, Sakura, Sakura… You don't get it. When I was young, I had to learn to act like a lady, but it was worth it, and…"

She immediately tuned her mother out, just in case she was ready to jump out her bedroom window. Agh, why must she be the only girl she knew of that had to suffer through this kind of horrible torture? Sometimes, she wished she was a boy. But that was impossible, of course, since she really couldn't grow the necessary male body part.

Suddenly, there was complete silence. Sakura realized her mother was finished talking.

"Wow, Mom. That was truly an amazing story. Now if you'll excuse me, I have summer homework to do now." Sakura ushered her mother out the door.

Immediately after she left, Sakura flung herself into her computer chair and waited for the computer to start up. When she logged on, she signed on to AIM.

"No one cool's on…"

_OoRamenCrzy444oO has signed on._

"Still no one cool."

Sakura sat and waited for about five minutes, until she got extremely bored.

"Gah…I'll just talk to him."

**SakKicksAss16:**hey, sup naruto.

**OoRamenCrzy444oO:**HII SAKURACHAN NM U

**SakKicksAss16:**yeah, nothing much either.

**SakKicksAss16:**except for the fact that mom keeps yelling at me to be a lady.

**SakKicksAss16:**so she's shipping me off to a boarding school in ENGLAND.

**OoRamenCrzy444oO:**OH THAT SUX

**OoRamenCrzy444oO:**SORRY CAPS IS ON I DUNNO HOW TO TURN IT OF

**SakKicksAss16:**uhm okay.

**OoRamenCrzy444oO:**OKAY WELL I CAN HELP U ABOUT UR PROBLEM

Sakura was sure it was going to be completely retarded.

**OoRamenCrzy444oO:** PRETEND TO GO TO BOARDING SCHOOL BUT NOT!

She was right.

**SakKicksAss16:**…how will i do that, naruto?

**OoRamenCrzy444oO:**SIMPLE! U LYE 2 HER AND THEN U GO TO A DIFERENT SKOOL!

Okay, well, maybe it wasn't idiotic. It _was_a boarding school… so her mom wouldn't find out that she wasn't there since Sakura never really called her anyway. Naruto was actually thinking of smart ideas… for once.

**OoRamenCrzy444oO:**AND THEN U CAN COME TO OUR SKOOL!

**SakKicksAss16:**okay, going a bit too far there, naruto. your school is an ALL BOYS SCHOOL.

**OoRamenCrzy444oO:**YA BUTT U CAN GO UNDERCOVER AS A BOY! WONT IT BE FUN/

**SakKicksAss16:**...sure….. NO.

**OoRamenCrzy444oO:**AWW SAKCHAN BUT UR ALWAYS COMPLAING ABOUT HOW IT SUX TO BE A GRL!

That was true.

**SakKicksAss16:**but still… that's completely retarded.

**OoRamenCrzy444oO:**NO ITS NOT BECUZ UR MOM WONT FIND OUT AND IT WILL BE FUN

**SakKicksAss16:**okay, i'll think about it.

**OoRamenCrzy444oO:**YAYYY!

**OoRamenCrzy444oO:**I WILL NEVER GIVE AWAY YOUR SECRET AND I CAN TRAIN YOU ON HOW TO BE A BOY!

**SakKicksAss16:**okay naruto, calm down. and turn off your caps by pressing the button to the left of your 'a' key.

Sakura sat for three minutes until she received a reply.

**OoRamenCrzy444oO:**okay sakurachan!1111

**SakKicksAss16:**okay, good. you got the caps off. but there's one problem about going to an all boys school.

**OoRamenCrzy444oO:**whats tht

**SakKicksAss16:**uhmmm… my hair is pink?

**OoRamenCrzy444oO:**o we can fix tht

**OoRamenCrzy444oO:**we can definitly fix that

**SakKicksAss16:**…

**OoRamenCrzy444oO:**dont worry muehehehehe

**SakKicksAss16:**…..

**OoRamenCrzy444oO:**so heres my ideas

**OoRamenCrzy444oO:**while mummy thinks ur off at boarding skool

**OoRamenCrzy444oO:**ull b at my friends house

**OoRamenCrzy444oO:**im sure he wont mind if u move in w/ him and his mom dusnt care as long as ur a guy

**SakKicksAss16:**it sounds good so far.

**OoRamenCrzy444oO:**rite

**OoRamenCrzy444oO:**sry u cant move in w/ me cuz my house isnt for 2 ppl

**SakKicksAss16:**it's okay, but thank you naruto!

Sakura managed to act politely at the dinner table. After a few minutes of silence, she set her fork down and decided to begin her speech she prepared.

"Mom?"

"Yes, Sakura, honey?"

"Well…I was thinking about the boarding school in England. I admit—I do act very impolitely and not lady-like often. I think I should go and learn etiquette and manners and such, because I think I will benefit from this in the future. I also think I should go tomorrow so I know all about the history of the school and I can get used to the campus. But most importantly, I—"

"Sakura! I'd thought you'd never say yes! And of course you can go tomorrow! Oooh, I'm so glad my sweet little Sakura is finally getting past that rebellious stage in life!" Her mom jumped out of her chair and hugged Sakura tightly, making her choke.

"Agh, yeah, Mom. I'm totally past it."

So that left Sakura rummaging through her wardrobe to find the closest things to guy clothes she had. She stuffed everything in her black suitcase—tampons, her shampoo and conditioner, underwear, bras, and clothes. In case her mom checked her suitcase, she put a layer of extremely girly clothes on top of her other clothes. She was sure Naruto's friend would have everything else, hopefully. She would have to pretend to be a boy at his friend house too, since his friend wasn't supposed to know, so she would have to go to Naruto's house first to fix herself up.

After taking care of what she needed, she dragged her suitcases and bags down to the front door. She snuck into her father's room really quick to grab a bottle of cologne her dad never used anymore and she stuffed it in her purse. Her mother ran down the stairs and helped Sakura take her suitcases to the white minivan. They all climbed into the car and drove off to the airport.

When they arrived at the airport, Sakura's mother kissed her on the cheek.

"Oh, Sakura, I hope you'll have so much fun! I can't believe you're leaving home! I'll miss you so much, and don't forget to brush your teeth, okay honey?"

"Okay, whatever, bye Mom."

"Bye, Sakura!"

And with that, her mother left her alone in the middle of an airport, as she waited for Naruto to pick her up and take her to his house.

**Author's Note: Okay, people. It's short. I know. But I'm gonna update soon since I've already gotten ¼ of the next chapter done, and that's where Sakura goes from girl to boy :D**

**Exciting, eh?**

**Well, hope you enjoyed this chapter.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Naruto. And, by the way which has nothing to do with the disclaimer sorry about the formatting mistakes in the last chapter.

**Recap:**

When they arrived at the airport, Sakura's mother kissed her on the cheek.

"Oh, Sakura, I hope you'll have so much fun! I can't believe you're leaving home!! I'll miss you so much, and don't forget to brush your teeth, okay honey?"

"Okay, whatever, bye mum."

"Bye, Sakura!!"

And with that, her mum left her alone, in the middle of an airport, waiting for Naruto to pick her up and take her to his house.

**Chapter Two**

"Sakura-chan!"

Sakura turned around to face a gleeful Naruto. God, did he have to be happy all the time? She sighed.

"Hey Naruto. Okay, let's go!"

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

She found herself sitting in a comfy chair in a hair salon, with a grey towel draped around her neck. She was ready for her haircut.

"So you're really sure about this, Sakura-chan??" Naruto grinned. He had already deeply pressed in her mind that it was going to be the best year of her life.

"Yeah, whatever. Just… cut my hair till about here.", she moved her hand to an inch above the base of her neck," and dye it dark brown."

The hairdresser nodded and got to work.

-After the haircut and hair dying-

"Sakura-chan, you look like a gay boy!! With boobs!" Naruto giggled. "But we can fix the chest part.", Naruto said, eyes gleaming evilly, as he pulled out a roll of medical bandages. Sakura snatched the roll away from Naruto.

"Thanks, but I can do it _myself_."

After she bandaged up her…chest, (which she had no problem with since she was sort of flat anyway) she followed Naruto to the mall to buy some clothes with him. Even if they had uniforms at his school, they had dances, so she needed a tux. And, if she made any friends there, she would have to hang out with them, so she would need more than just a school uniform and a tux. They passed through Pac Sun, Hollister, and her least favorite store: Abercrombie. And what was really awkward were the few stares Sakura received from girls. Did they notice something wrong? Was her chest…too noticeable?

"They think you're hot, Sakura," Naruto explained, "So get used to being stared at by girls, 'cause you're officially a guy now. And we really need to change your name, don't we?"

"Yeah. How about…," Sakura thought for a few seconds. "Katsu?" It was her old friend's ex boyfriend's name. She liked that name ever since the first time she heard it.

"That's a nice name. Katsu. Oh, and by the way, don't walk like that."

"Like what?"

"Don't be all bouncy and stuff. And don't sway your hips. Makes you look gay." Naruto grinned again.

"You seem to take pleasure whenever you inform me that I look gay."

"Huh?"

"Nevermind."

Sakura tried to not sway her hips as much, but it was really hard. How could she not? She was a girl. Girls sway their hips. It's natural.

As she was walking like a boy past a bunch of shops, she finally saw herself in a mirror that was placed inside a store called Delia's. She stopped and stared. Was that even _her?_ She didn't even recognize herself anymore. It was like— take out the boobs, the long pink hair, and _poof_—she looked like a totally new person. Her new, dark brown bangs, which contrasted nicely with her bright green eyes, covered her forehead, so no one could notice the… width. And yeah, she looked like a guy. A hot guy. But she couldn't exactly call herself hot…

"Sak—I meant, Katsu, what are you doing? And why are you looking inside a girl store? We're shopping for guy clothes." Naruto stopped and looked at her.

"Hey, Naruto!" A guy called out behind them. Naruto and Sakura turned around.

It was a guy, about their age, who had milk chocolate coloured hair and bright blue eyes like Naruto's eyes. He was with a girl, who had the same type of eyes and her long, blonde hair tied back into a high ponytail. Wait… Was that Ino?!

Sakura looked at him, then at Ino, and then at Naruto.

"Shen! Ino! Hey, guys. Haven't seen you in a while!", Naruto smiled.

"Hey, yeah. School's starting soon, gotta shop!", Ino laughed. Sakura used to go to the same school as Ino, so she knew that Ino went to a school that didn't have a uniform. But she suspected that Shen and Naruto went to the same school.

"So, who's this?" Shen looked at Sakura.

"Hi, I'm Sa... I meant Katsu."

"He's the one that's gonna be crashing at your place." Naruto looked at Sakura. "But he has to… Go back to his house to get his suitcases and everything. I'll drive him to your house after he's gotten that taken care of."

"Cool", Shen replied. "Hey, lets all walk around together until we have to go."

And so they did. While they were walking, Sakura caught Ino staring at her.

"Oh, I haven't introduced myself yet. My name's Ino," Ino gave Sakura a smile and Sakura knew that Ino was trying to be flirty. Great. Ino was going to flirt with her. Sakura shuddered. She was best friends with Ino long enough to know exactly what she was going to do. "You're new in town, huh?"

"Yeah…"

"I know you're busy and everything with getting settled down here, but when are you free?" Ino gave her another smile. Sakura was feeling pretty uncomfortable, especially because of the fact that her best friend was hitting on her. Could there be anything more awkward?

"In fact, I'm really busy for the next week…" Sakura didn't know with what. She just didn't want to go on a date with _Ino_.

"Oh… Okay." Ino looked away disappointedly. Sakura was really surprised that Ino even thought about asking her out. She knew her best friend had a mad crush on a guy named Shikamaru, but Ino would never admit it. Sakura sighed. She remembered all the times she tried to set them up, but she always failed.

"You said your name was Ino? _Yamanaka _Ino?" Sakura acted surprised. Ino turned and stared at Sakura. Then, she grinned.

"Yeah! You know me? From where?"

"Oh, it's just that my friend, _Shikamaru_ likes to talk about you all the time," Sakura smirked. "He's always going on and on and on about how nice you are."

Which was, of course, not true. But Sakura didn't really care.

"Ohmygawd, really?" Sakura nodded at Ino, and her grin became so wide, she looked like a clown.

"Oh, and by the way, do _not _tell him I said so, otherwise he's gonna kill me." Ino didn't reply, but Sakura knew she got the message. She looked away, so Ino couldn't see her snickering.

0000000000000000000000000000000000

"Wow, Saku, I meant, Katsu, I never knew you would look good in a tux. You don't look gay, just so you know." Sakura glared at Naruto.

"Good to know." She said. She was trying out her clothes at Naruto's place so she knew what to buy and what not to buy. At the mall, she didn't want to go into the dressing rooms to try them on since she didn't want Shen and Ino waiting for her all the time, even though Ino spent half her time trying on bikini's and very suggestive dresses. She flung her tux onto Naruto's navy blue comforter and donned her old clothes. She was ready to go.

After stuffing her suitcases and bags into Naruto's small, orange buggy, they drove off to Shen's house.

0000000000000000000000000000000000

So Naruto dropped Sakura off at the front gates of Shen's huge complex. Shen was already waiting at the front gates to help Sakura lug all her stuff into the house, up a floor, and into a huge bedroom. When Sakura took her first step onto the honey-colored, plush carpet, and into the enormously, heavily adorned bedroom, she gasped. It looked like nothing she had ever seen before.

It was probably the size of a really small, one story house. To the very far right corner, there was a huge, very comfortable-looking bed with a red comforter and numerous golden pillows. The canopy was very high, and the tips of the poles on each corner of the bed that held the canopy up were golden. They had beautiful Celtic designs and the tips ended in a swirl. Next to the bed was a marble end table, with a red glass vase of peach-coloured cabbage roses placed in the center. To the right of the end table, was a white table with a mirror. The edges of the mirror were decorated with little carvings of roses and leaves. On the north wall, there was a balcony. Through the maroon French doors, she saw a black table and two black chairs. Sakura thought it would be the ideal place for a cozy evening dinner. Placed on the left wall, there was a black dresser. I'm not going to even waste my time describing how large and pretty it is. And to the right of the dresser, there was, un-doubtfully, a very large bathroom as well.

"Okay, just make yourself at home, and maybe we can play football later. Call the maid, who's always gonna be patrolling this hallway, if you have any trouble. By the way—I just got a call. School starts tomorrow. It's been bumped back two days early."

"It starts tomorrow?!" Sakura yelled. Shen nodded.

"Yeah, but I'm pretty sure you'll have no problem 'cause you're pretty much settled in. Get a good night's sleep. See ya tomorrow!"

And with that, Shen left her drowning in her thoughts.

"School… Starts… Tomorrow…," Sakura flopped herself onto her, once again, _very_ large bed, "It's okay, Sakura. No need to worry. You're smart. No one will see past your disguise. Have fun. Don't worry… Go to sleep… It's ten, and I need to rest… Okay, no more worrying!"

Around twelve, Sakura drifted off to sleep.

**Author's Note: Okay, I made it a bit longer. Which is good, right? I tried to make it less crappier and longer, in which I think I succeeded. I'll make it longer next chappy. Please review. I feed off of reviews. **

**But yayy!!! Sakura gets to go to school tomorrow and she gets to meet all the guys… Can she handle her teenage horomones??! Hehehe… Stick around and find out :D**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. –sobs-**

**Recap**

"_School… Starts… Tomorrow…," Sakura flopped herself onto her, once again, _very_ large bed, "It's okay, Sakura. No need to worry. You're smart. No one will see past your disguise. Have fun. Don't worry… Go to sleep… It's ten, and I need to rest… Okay, no more worrying!"_

_Around twelve, Sakura drifted off to sleep._

**Chapter Two**

"Katsu."

"_Katsu_."

"KATSU."

"KATSU, WAKE UP!!!"

Sakura groaned and rolled over. Who was calling her Katsu? And why? All she wanted to do was sleep. Her bed seemed unusually comfy that night and she just wanted to stay engulfed in that amazingly soft mattress. Why was the world so cruel…

"Katsu, wake up, school starts in fifteen minutes and you _need_ to get ready! It's 7:15!"

Suddenly, all the events that happened yesterday rushed into Sakura's head. She flung the covers off her body and jumped out of bed, landing on poor Shen.

"Dear Lord!," She cried, "I need to do so much! Oh my god, _fifteen minutes?!_ Shen, I need to shower! That takes me, like, half-an-hour! And I need to change, so get out, get out, get out!!" She tried shoving Shen out the door, but he stood his ground and looked at her strangely.

"Uh, you really sound girly in the morning, you know that? And what _guy_ ever showers at most twice a week?"

"I DO!! NOW GET OUT!" Sakura yelled again [making her voice a bit deeper, this time succeeding in throwing Shen out her bedroom.

Sakura decided not to take a shower after Shen told her that guys never really showered anyway. How did she not remember that before? She changed into the school uniform [a white dress shirt and long black pants. They wore black blazers on assembly days and proceeded to brush her teeth.

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

"Hurry, Katsu, school starts in five minutes. Better eat fast!," Shen watched Sakura gulp down a cup of steaming hot coffee. He was surprised to see no reaction from her right after she downed a cup of black burning coffee. She wiped her lips with the back of her hand, grabbed her black messenger bag, and ran out to the front of the gates, with Shen right behind her.

Thank God Shen had a really fast limousine with a reckless driver.

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

"We have to run from here," Shen grabbed Sakura's arm and they both ran up the stairs, into the large brick building, through the empty hallways, and they burst through the auditorium doors… to see everyone staring at them, including the principle, who was probably in the middle of giving a 'Welcome Back' speech.

"We're very sorry we're late, Principle Hokage," Shen apologized. The principle looked at Shen. Then he turned to Sakura.

"Well, that's okay, but it will be pretty bad on your record. This _is_ your first day," the principle coughed, and then gestured to the many rows of cushioned seats in front of him. "You may sit anywhere you like."

Shen grabbed Sakura's arm, thanked the principle, and dragged her near Naruto and what seemed like his friends, since they were glancing and smiling at each other. But what seemed like Naruto's _best_ friend was an extremely good-looking boy sitting to his left, since Naruto was grinning and poking him. He had cold, obsidian eyes and spiky black hair. When he looked at her, she felt strange and her mouth seemed to desiccate. She wondered how Naruto could be _his_ best friend.

She sat down and listened to Principle Hokage drone on and on about what and what not to do in school, since he already talked about the brief history of The West Konoha Academy. It was so boring…

Sakura began to doze off, because she only got seven hours of sleep the night before.

"Katsu, get ready to get your schedule. It has your locker number and combination on it. The principle's placed them on one of the four tables down below. Yours is on the first table, since your last name is Akita, right?" Shen whispered in her ear.

Sakura nodded and stood up. Once she reached the first table, she began searching through the large piles of white slips for her schedule. As she was rummaging through a small stack, she felt someone bump into her, causing her to spill the sheets all over the floor.

"Hey, watch it!" Sakura hissed at him, bending down to pick up all the sheets, not even looking up to see who it was.

"Hn," came his reply. She finally looked up to see the obsidian-eyed boy glaring down at her. His eyes were even colder when he glared, but Sakura glared right back at him. It was a raging contest on who would look away first. She could spend years looking at his gorgeous face…

Wait.

What was she thinking?

_He_ bumped into _her_, maybe even on purpose, and he wasn't helping her pick up the sheets at all, unlike what a true gentleman would do. He didn't even apologize!

"Psh, aren't you even gonna help me?" She asked.

"Hn." Sasuke turned and walked away.

'_Oh, my God, _what_ a bastard!_' Sakura thought, not daring to say it out loud. She bent back down to the glossy wooden floor and began to pick up all the sheets. Soon, Naruto was by her side helping her. They placed the stack back on the table.

"Hey, Sa—_Katsu_, isn't this yours?" Naruto handed a white slip with the name "AKITA KATSU" printed on the top in big, black letters. Sakura took the slip from Naruto and thanked him.

"Well I did a pretty good job on your registration, didn't I?" smiled Naruto. "They didn't notice a thing about it. Glad I got you in with no trouble, eh?"

Sakura just smiled at himand began to read her schedule. Naruto looked over her shoulder.

"Hey! We're in the same homeroom and math class!" Naruto beamed. "Okay, well, gotta find my locker, so see you at advisory."

[Sakura read it, but you don't have to.

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

**AKITA KATSU**

**Grade 10**

**Locker Number: 183**

**Locker Combination: 15-2-9**

**Class Schedule:**

**7:45 a.m.-8:30 a.m.: Period A—Advisory, Room 206………………… Mr. Kakashi**

**8:35 a.m.-9:20 a.m.: Period B—Science, Room 203……………………Ms. Kurenai**

**9:25 a.m.-10:10 a.m.: Period C—Math, Room 208 …………………... Mr. Iruka **

**10:15 a.m.-11:00 a.m.: Period D—P.E., Gym 1…………………….Mr. Guy**

**11:05 a.m.-11:45 a.m.: Lunch—Cafeteria**

**11:50 a.m.-12:35 p.m.: Period E—History, Room 204..……………….Mr. Sarutobi**

**12:40 p.m.-1:25 p.m.: Period F—English, Room 207…………………Ms. Tsunade**

**1:30 p.m.-2:15 p.m.: Period G—Language Arts, Room 201………….Ms. Anko**

**2:15 p.m.-3:00 p.m.: Study Hall—Common Room 10**

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000**  
**

"Okay… So I have to get to my locker… Locker 183." Sakura wandered around the hallway, until she found her locker.

"Yay!! Here it is," Sakura looked at her white slip again, and then put in the locker combination. Her locker wasn't empty at all—it was filled with textbooks and empty, different coloured binders that varied in sizes. "Okay… Wow… Naruto really _has_ gotten all my supplies in. Last minute, too. I really gotta pay him…"

Sakura hooked her messenger bag on the hook at the top of her locker and hurried off to advisory.

"Wow, our advisor's really late." Sakura remarked.

"Yeah, well, he's always late." Naruto muttered. Sakura sighed. It was fifteen minutes into first period, and Mr. Kakashi _still_ had not come. She began to think of all the bad things that could have happened to their advisor… when a boy with black, spiky hair walked in.

"Hey, Naruto? Who's that guy?"

"Oh, Sasuke-teme? He's my best friend!!" Naruto exclaimed, earning a glare from Sasuke.

"Your best friend?" Sakura looked dubious. Very dubious.

"Yep!!"

Naruto earned another glare from Sasuke.

"By the way, Katsu, Sasuke's having a sleepover party. Wanna come?"

"Uh… Sure!" Although Sakura held a grudge against Sasuke, she wanted to go since there would obviously be people she could socialize with and she could get friends.

"Mmkay, Shen was invited, too, so he'll drive you there."

Just then, a man, who appeared to be in his early thirties, walked into the classroom. He had a blue mask on that covered his whole face, except for his right eye. It didn't creep Sakura out much, because he seemed to have a friendly aura.

"Okay class, I'm your homeroom teacher. As you all know, from last year, I'm Mr. Kakashi. However, there is one new student that'll be joining us this year. Mr. Akita Katsu?"

Sakura took that as her cue to walk to the front of the classroom and introduce herself.

"Hi everyone, my name is Katsu and I just moved here."

"So, Katsu, what are some hobbies of yours?" Kakashi asked.

"Um... I like to listen to music, chat online, shop..."

Everyone stared at her.

"...shopping for my girlfriend. Yeah... I like to go hang out with my girlfriend and friends, basically. And I like to play football and airsoft."

"Okay, Katsu. Thank you for introducing yourself. Now you may go sit next to... Mr. Uchiha Sasuke over there."

Sakura groaned.

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Sakura spent the day doodling in her notebooks, since she already knew all the stuff they were being taught in class. Especially math. Finally, the bell rang at the end of study hall period, and Sakura was so happy that hell was finally over. But, she had to admit—it was much better than boarding school. She smiled and walked down the hallway to get all her stuff from her locker, when she bumped into…

Veggie Man!

No, just kidding.

She bumped into Sasuke, but this time, he had a bunch of girls following him screaming his name. Sasuke was glaring at them all, trying to get them to go away by ignoring them, but anyone could tell it wasn't working. She decided to leave him alone, afraid that she'd get attacked by the huge mob of… fan girls.

"Katsu?"

Sakura turned around to find that Ino was the one that called her.

"Ino! What's up with all this commotion and everything…? It looks pretty bad," Sakura glanced at Sasuke, "And it seems to be irritating chicken hair boy the most." Ino laughed and then pointed to the mob of fan girls.

"This happens all the time after school 'cause we just wanna see our Sasuke-Kun!"

"He doesn't look that happy about it…" Sakura muttered and turned away. Ino ignored her and continued to coo over Sasuke.

Sakura walked past a bunch of boys huddled around a wooden table. Curious, she looked over their shoulders and saw a sheet with the words "**Football Tryouts**" printed at the very top, and a bunch of names scribbled down below that. She saw that Shen and Naruto had signed up, so she decided to sign up as well. Sakura knew how to play football and she could say that she was pretty good at it, too. She used to play a lot with the boys in her old neighborhood where she was born, but she moved to Konoha when she was ten and no one wanted to play with her, since she was a girl. Maybe they were just scared that she would totally kick their asses…

"Get outta my way, new kid!" Suddenly, someone pushed Sakura away from the table, and she fell to the floor, face first.

"Hey! What was that for?" She kicked out her right leg and tripped the boy, and he toppled over and crashed into the table. A boy that looked a _lot_ like Sasuke… But it wasn't him. Sakura stood up and was about to walk away with Shen, but she was shoved into the wall.

"New kid needs to learn a lesson, huh?"

"Shut up! Why'd you—"

It hurt. Really bad. When he punched her in the boobs? Yes, it hurt. But Sakura wasn't going to let it go. As she tried ignoring the pain in her chest, she kneed Mr. Sasuke-Look-Alike in the balls, which probably hurt more than him punching her boobs.

"Ow! Fuck! You're gonna be sorry!" He yelled, as he fell to the floor, clutching his balls. A crowd of boys gathered around the poor boy.

"Wow, he really got you good, Sai." One of the boys, who had messy brown hair and weird red tattoo on his face, crouched down beside Sai and tried to help him up. Sakura smirked and caught up with Shen, who was already near the entrance of the school.

"See you at football tryouts, Sai!"

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

**Author's Note: Okay. Umm... I tried making it a bit longer than the last one, and I think I did. AND SAKURA GETS TO GO TO SASUKE'S SLEEPOVER MUAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!! Yesss... Can she take care of herself? CAN SHE PREVENT PEOPLE FROM KNOWING HER SECRET?! **

**Muehehehehe.**

**Oh, and Skyward? I granted your wish... :D She will now be the ultimate football player of doooom. And thanks for all you other people for reviewing and keeping me writing!!! **

**Yeah. 'Till next time, guys.  
**


	4. Chapter 4

**Diclaimer: Me no own Naruto. :O**

**Recap:**

"_Wow, he really got you good, Sai." One of the boys, who had messy brown hair and weird red tattoo on his face, crouched down beside Sai and tried to help him up. Sakura smirked and caught up with Shen, who was already near the entrance of the school._

"_See you at football tryouts, Sai!"_

**Chapter Four: **

"Okay, this isn't good." Sakura peered at her bloodied panties and threw them in the sink so she could hand-wash them later. That way, Shen wouldn't be suspicious. She pulled a blue box of tampons out of her suitcase and took some out. When she was done with her business, she pulled on a pair of baggy black cargo pants and a black My Chemical Romance t-shirt. She stuffed the rest of the tampons, and a small bottle of Tylenol, in her backpack that she was going to take to Sasuke's. Then, she took out a roll of medical bandages from her backpack and re-bandaged her chest. She had taken off the bandages after she got back from school, since they felt really bad after the fight with Sai. After she took off the bandages, she avoided Shen as much as she could, just in case he saw her chest. Thankfully, it was feeling much better now.

Sakura glanced at the clock. 6:50 p.m. She grabbed her teal coloured sleeping bag and left the room.

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

"So, are we there yet?" Sakura asked Shen. He nodded. She looked out the window, bemused. How could they be there yet? All she could see was a black iron French fence…And behind the looming fence, were towering rectangular bushes, blocking her view of any houses.

"What? No we're not… We're outside a neighborhood, right?"

"No, Katsu, that's part of Sasuke's estate," He pointed to the golden "U" design that appeared on the fence, every few yards they passed by, "'U' for Uchiha. As you can probably tell by now, he's quite rich."

Sakura looked outside again. She couldn't believe it! They'd been driving around the same thing for a few _minutes_ by now. Was his house really _that_ big?!

Soon, she found out. When they _finally_ got to the entrance gates, a security guard opened the car door for Sakura and Shen, letting them out. The security guard [who was really cute, Sakura noted pulled a neatly folded piece of paper out of his trouser pockets. He looked at Shen.

"Last name, please."

"Yamagata."

"Shen?"

"Yes."

The guard glanced up at Sakura from his sheet of names.

"Last name please."

"Haru…I meant, uh, Akita."

He looked at her suspiciously.

"My first name's Katsu." Sakura added. The guard nodded and then turned around to flip open the gold lid of a barely protruding block of iron from the gate. Sakura saw a miniscule silver button, which the guard pressed a few seconds later. The entrance gates shuddered, and then slowly opened to reveal the huge estate and its beautiful front garden, complete with a grand mermaid fountain. Sakura stood there, gawking at the whole scene, trying to take it all in. But before she could, Shen grabbed her arm and dragged her to the massively large front doors.

"You seem to have a tendency to grab my arm all the time." Sakura sneered playfully. Shen released his grip and proceeded to clasp his hand around the golden door knocker. He banged on the door two times before it opened. A girl who wore a frilly maid uniform stood in the entrance, staring at them.

"Are you here for the sleepover?" She asked in a weary voice. Both of them nodded, and the girl gave a weak smile. "Okay, follow me."

She led them in, and Sakura was overcome with a new wave of amazement when she stepped into the house. A Phantom of the Opera designed chandelier hung from the ceiling, surrounded by renaissance ceiling paintings of gods and goddesses. Hung on the walls were paintings of, Sakura supposed, Sasuke's ancestors. What caught Sakura's eyes the most was the red and white fan on the wall opposite to her. And it was just so beautif—

Shen grabbed Sakura's arm and dragged her upstairs.

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

"Oh my God, _how__many_ steps do we need to climb?" Sakura wheezed out. She was pretty fit, but climbing probably about fives sets of very long winding stairs could tire anyone.

"We could always take the elevator, you know." Shen smiled at Sakura.

"Well, why not?"

"Actually, it's out of order. It broke after Naruto did something with it. They're still trying to fix it…"

"I'm going to kill Naruto later." Sakura snarled. She twitched as they walk past an elevator. After a few more minutes of walking, the maid stopped and knocked on a black door. Sakura tensed; she could feel a dark aura coming from there. Or was it coming from there at all? She looked behind her, at a door that was painted an even darker black. It was so dark, it seemed to swallow the light.

"I wouldn't go in there if I were you," warned the maid. There was a speck of fear in her eyes. The door she knocked on opened and there stood Sasuke. He looked blankly at Sakura and Shen, then stepped aside to let them in.

"SAKURA-CHANN!!!!" Screamed Naruto, just as Sakura stepped inside the room. Sakura looked at him weirdly, just as everyone else did.

"Uh… I meant…Have you ever heard of a girl named Sakura?" Naruto laughed nervously, glancing at Sakura. She glared at him.

"I seem to recall that Ino fangirl talking about a Haruno Sakura once." Sasuke spoke… for the first time in a millennium. "She's probably just as annoying as Ino, since 'they're best friends!'"

Sakura felt her hands ball up into fists. _I'm so going to hit him_. **But do you really want to mar the face of pretty boy over there?**_ Who are you?!_** I'm your… Inner Sakura! Muahaha!**_ What the fuck. _**Yep. **_Get out of my head!_** Can't. I'm you. You're me. **

Sakura could just see the Inner Sakura smirking at her.

"Uh heh heh, Sakura's not annoying! She's really cool and everything… Not at all like Ino!" Naruto said _very_ loudly. Sasuke glared at him. Sakura wondered if he ever looked at anyone without glaring. Probably not.

"And this is Katsu, everyone. He's new in town!" Naruto nervously laughed _again_. Sakura lifted her hand and gave a small wave to everyone. "Hi everybody."

A bunch of "Hi's" were murmured back to Sakura.

Sakura noticed that there were girls in the room, too. She recognized a couple of them—Hinata and Ten Ten, who were good friends with her. They went to the same school with Ino. However, there was one girl she didn't know. A girl with sandy blonde hair tied into four spiky ponytails. Hm. Weird.

Sakura couldn't risk talking to Hinata and Ten Ten much, just in case they said something about how her facial features reminded them of a close friend. And then Naruto would some how blow it by being really nervous.

"HOW ABOUT WE PLAY SPIN THE BOTTLE OF YOUTHFULNESS?!?! THIS GAME IS SO YOUTHFUL AND DARING!!" A boy she knew from her science class fervidly suggested. Rock Lee, was it? He was wearing tight green spandex all over his body and a red sash.

"Okay, but how do you play 'Spin the Bottle of… Youthfulness?'" Sakura asked.

"Oh, it is exactly like Spin the Bottle, except with more youthfulness!" He answered back, ebullient.

They all sighed.

"Can I go first?" Ten Ten looked around and everyone nodded. She spun it and it landed on… Sakura.

"Okay, Katsu. Kiss me!" Ten Ten turned to her right and leaned over, where Sakura was sitting. Sakura groaned inwardly and glanced at Naruto. He had a look of despair on his face, while everyone else was smiling and snickering. Except for another guy, who looked a bit angry… She recognized him from her math and P.E. class. He had pearly white eyes and long, dark brown hair. Hyuuga Neji.

Sakura leaned in… Why did it have to be her? Why couldn't it be the guy glaring, burning holes in her back, who obviously had a crush on Ten Ten? Going out with _Ino_ was probably better than this.

She closed her eyes, right before their lips touched. And right when they touched, Sakura let it stay for about a second, and then she pulled back. Ten Ten pouted.

"Awww! It has to be at least… Hmm… Ten seconds!" Ten Ten wrapped her arms around Sakura's neck, and pulled her in, so they could have a more-than-ten-_minutes_-make-out-session. But thank God the maid stepped in the room, asking anyone if they were hungry. Ten Ten pulled away quickly and blushed.

Sasuke waved the maid away, saying that none of us were hungry. She nodded and left.

"So… Back to the game," Naruto could almost feel Sakura's pain. She quickly spun the bottle and after a few seconds, it slowed down. It inched past Shikamaru, Hinata, Naruto, and it landed on…

Sasuke.

Looks of sympathy were sent to Sakura. Sasuke, however, showed no emotion.

**So it lands on pretty boy, huh? **_Shush. I'm thinking. _**Thinking about what? How you're gonna kiss Sasuke-**_**Kun**__Shut up, no, I'm trying to think about how to get _out_ of this!_**Oh, trust me. You don't. **_What the hell!? _

And then Neji smirked. "C'mon guys. It landed on Sasuke. So Katsu, go ahead."

Dear Lord, how she began to hate him so much.

She crossed the circle, bent down next to Sasuke, and leaned in. He smelled really good… He didn't smell like cologne. It was more like the fresh smell of the pine trees and a bit of mint. She liked it. Then, she squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her lips against his. As cold as Sasuke looked, his lips were surprisingly warm. And soft.

"Oh, my God," whispered a few people in the back.

After three whole seconds of kissing Sasuke, she finally realized she was supposed to be a guy, so instantly pulled away and wiped her lips with her t-shirt. She put on a disgusted face. "Wow, Uchiha. I didn't think you were _that_ bad. Remind me to wash my mouth out with soap before I go to sleep."

Everyone laughed. Except for Sasuke.

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

They all ended up going to sleep at about one o' clock in the morning after a long Spin the Bottle game. During which Sakura slipped away from the circle, saying that her stomach hurt a bit and she had to use the restroom for a second. No one noticed that she grabbed her backpack and left the room to quickly change tampons. And no one noticed when she clutched her stomach in pain every once in a while.

It was just too bad when Sakura couldn't fall asleep. They each got separate rooms, but most of them snuck into each others rooms and fell asleep there. Sakura got a room across from Sasuke's, which was, unfortunately for Sakura, next to the evil hell-room with the scary door. She had to lock her room to avoid people so they wouldn't knock on her door. Just in case they saw her chest, since she took off her medical bandages for the night. She kept on her guy clothes since they were pretty comfortable. It was about one thirty when she felt excruciating pain in her tummy, and she had to jump out of bed and search for her Tylenol. After a few minutes of groping around in the dark while clutching her tummy, she found her backpack and rushed out of the room.

It was pitch black. She couldn't see a thing, and she couldn't remember where the bathroom was… She placed her hand on the wall next to her and began to walk down the hall. Thankfully, there were a few windows, so the half-full moon provided _some_ light for her to see.

"What are you doing here?" Hissed a voice behind her. Gasping, she turned around facing Sasuke. Or was it Sasuke? She couldn't tell.

"I'm here for your sleepover, dumbass Uchiha. God, sometimes you make me wonder." She decided to be smart with him. Wrong move. A hand gripped her throat tightly and she was pushed harshly against a wall.

"Lies. You are one of brother's fangirls."

And that's when she noticed that, instead of coal black eyes, his eyes were a bloody, glowing red. Plain scary.

She shook her head slowly, but his grip around her throat didn't loosen.

"Sasuke, let go… It's Katsu…" She managed to say, in a fearful, high-pitched voice. And once she said that, she noticed something different about him—he had much longer hair and scars underneath his eyes. So… it wasn't Sasuke. A new sense of fear filled her mind. She could tell that the man holding her by the neck wasn't going to let her go that easily. She felt like... he would kill her if he wanted to.

"I meant… I'm Sasuke's classmate."

"Impossible. You are a girl." Could his voice get any scarier? And how did he know she was a girl… Through her baggy clothes, no one could see her boobs.

"What…"

"Don't lie to me. I can sense who you are and you are not male."

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

**Author's Note: Cliffhanger, anyone? Yeah. Sorry about that :D**

**Anyway, I haven't been able to update much. My parents say I've been on the computer much too long for my own good -.-**

**So I tried to make this chapter a bit longer. AND REVIEW, PLEASE. Bye guyss!!**

**  
**

**Oh yeah, and this is what the gate of the Uchiha Estate thing looked like [the place behind the gates aren't:**

http://carrieadnett.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: I no own Naruto so me cryyy. Sorry I'm late about this chapter—I've been playing a lot of Kingdom Hearts II recently. And this is probably a crappy chapter, so sorry guys…**

**And btw, ppl's. I'm reading this awesome RoxasXAxel fanfic right now. Pah, who cares, but yeah. I suggest you read it :D It's called "Remind Me Again?" by Pharaoh-Chan. Extremely good, so anyone who's interested in Roxas and Axel… READ IT. **

**Moooving on.**

**Chapter Five**

Sasuke flipped over in bed, unable to sleep. He laid there, thinking about what happened. Katsu had lip-kissed him, and he expected it to be worse than shit, but… It wasn't. He didn't expect it to be that nice. Katsu didn't enjoy it at all, he could tell, but then why did he kiss him for so long…? It probably wasn't that long, but it felt really long to Sasuke. Arghhh, why was he even thinking about that? He wasn't turning gay, right?

"No, Sasuke, you are _not_ turning gay." He whispered to himself. Just then, he heard a shuffling outside in the hallway. And then he felt his brother's presence come very close to his door and then past it. Such a dark, strong presence. He could probably feel it from miles away. But it wasn't just his brother that was out there. Curious as to what was happening, Sasuke got out of bed and walked to his bedroom door. He opened the door just a crack and listened for anymore sounds.

"…a girl." That was his brother's voice. Oh, how he _loathed _him. He could just—

"What…" Was that Katsu's voice? What was Katsu doing?

"Don't lie to me. I can sense who you are and you are not male."

What in the hell… He stepped outside and saw a clear view of Itachi's hand tightly gripping Katsu's neck, slowly suffocating him.

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Sakura's eyes got wider and wider. Oh shit, how did he know? Someone was going to find out… But who was this guy?

"Put him down, Itachi." That was Sasuke's voice! She thought she'd never be that happy to hear his voice. Ever. But Itachi didn't listen.

"What is _she _doing here?"

"It doesn't matter. Put her down. She's here for the sleepover."

Sakura's happiness quickly dispersed into tiny pieces of shit that sunk into the deep pit fires of hell. Sasuke knew.

"Foolish little brother." Itachi said in his cold, cold, cold, more-creepy-than-a-pedophile voice. He let go of Sakura's neck and she fell to the floor on her knees. Before she could look up, he was gone. All there was left was just her and Sasuke.

"Katsu…"

"I can explain. But not here."

And so he took her into his bedroom. She slumped in a really comfortable sofa in the corner of Sasuke's room, next to the bathroom. He sat on the sofa, as well. To her far right.

"Uh, well… Okay," Sakura got ready to spill what was left of her secret. "I'm not a guy. I'm a girl. And, it's kind of hard to explain why I'm disguised as a boy."

Sasuke just looked at her. No emotions. Sakura looked down at her hands, which were laying there, limp in her lap.

"It started out with my mum. She was going to send me to a boarding school in England so I could learn etiquette. And I didn't want to go, since it would just be plain torture. Then Naruto said he would help me get out of going there, and I ended up going to your school."

She looked up from her hands and at Sasuke. Still no emotions.

"You're a girl." Sasuke repeated, after her explanation. Sakura scoffed.

"Yeah, that's what I _said_. Did you catch the rest or am I gonna have to repeat it, and then write it down so you can remember?"

Sasuke's gaze slowly drifted down to her chest. Was Katsu _really_ a girl? He couldn't tell through those baggy clothes. Well, he _did_ look really feminine, in a way. And usually, Itachi was right. No—he was right _all _the time. So that means… A boy hadn't kissed him? So his first kiss wasn't taken away by a boy? That was good. Life was good.

What?!

WHY DID HE EVEN CARE?!

"Sasuke?"

He lifted his gaze to her face.

"So anyway… Will you please not tell? Please? For my sake? And for Ten Ten's too, seeing how she thought I was a guy…"

The corner's of Sasuke's mouth twitched. If he had not been Sasuke, he would have been smiling.

"I understand. I won't tell."

All of a sudden, he felt Sakura's arms encircle his waist, and bring him into a tight hug.

"Ohmygodohmygodohmygod, thankyouthankyouthankyou!!! I didn't think you would agree not to tell anyone, and ohmygod thankyousoomuch!"

Awkwardly, he tried hugging her back. Was that the right thing to do, hug her back? Well, he really didn't care. He thought.

"Okay, well, my tummy's starting to hurt again, so, mind if I use your bathroom?"

Sasuke shot her a weirded-out look.

"No, I'm not gonna stink it up. I just need to… Um. Well, do _girl_ stuff. Time of the month." She said.

He nodded and watched her grab her backpack and stalk into the bathroom.

He frowned.

She never told him her real name that night.

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Sakura awoke with a content tummy and to the soft closing of doors outside her room. She yawned and rolled over on her stomach, not wanting to wake up. She laid there for about two minutes until she forced herself to look up at the clock hanging above the door.

6:45 a.m.

And she had gone to sleep at about two, thanking Sasuke over and over and over again. Around the seventh hundred and seventieth time, she went back to her room to sleep. God knows what he thought about her now, her disguising herself as a boy. Did he think she was lesbian, or something? Maybe. She really hoped he wouldn't tell anyone. She heard her door open.

"Katsu?" Whispered Sasuke's voice. "It's time to go to school… Sorta."

Sakura raised her head from her pillow and looked at him.

"Uh…huh. Yeah. Just… let me get ready. I'll be down there in a sec." She managed to mumble.

"Okay." He closed the door.

She slowly rose up into a sitting position. And then she slowly took off the blue covers of her body. And then she slowly turned around in the bed and placed her feet on the carpeted floor. And then she slowly stood up, only to stumble and fall over, knocking her head on the door. And then she quickly fell asleep, her body slumped against the door.

"Katsu!"

"KATSU! Open up! What happened? Are you alright?"

She opened one eye. It was Sasuke. Again. She closed her eye.

"Ahemmahmurh…Gooarchsah."

She felt her body drag forward with the force of someone pushing the door open.

"Katsu, where are you?"

"Murghhh. Yummy moogles."

She felt the door close and her upper body fell to the floor. She opened both of her eyes and stared into the somewhat worried eyes of Mr. Uchiha Sasuke. She closed them again.

"Poo with me, malady." She murmured.

"You really need to get up. For school."

"Noooo, poppy, I want my shitsteaks. Gimme _now_."

"Katsu!"

"You kishabob get a gutter out of your assikins because we sure are gonna take a roll in deh hayyo."

"…What?"

"Did you know… A straw of chocolate pudding is equivalent to a cup of mermaid piss… Mix it together and you get a toe-flavored rainbow."

"Katsu, you are so weird…" If Sasuke wasn't so cold, then he would've been smiling by then. But he was Sasuke. So he had an emotionless face on, with a small tint of worried-ness. He lifted Sakura up, bridal style, and set her gently back on the bed.

"I guess I'll let you sleep… I'll just say you were sick today."

"I WANT MY SHITSTEAKS _NOW_!"

Sasuke ripped a yellow post-it note of its pad and scribble something down. He stuck it on the door and left the room.

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Sakura groaned as she was brought back to consciousness. She opened both eyes to see a blurry chandelier. When it finally became one, clear chandelier, she jumped out of bed and looked at the clock.

1:26?! P.M.?!

She screamed. When she finally calmed down, she noticed a little yellow post-it note stuck to her door.

_Katsu—_

_I told everyone that you were sick. You kind of are, aren't you? With your "time of the month" thing happening. Also, you didn't get enough sleep last night, so you couldn't wake up this morning. Make yourself at home and don't screw anything up. _

_Sasuke_

_P.S. I promise I won't tell anyone about your secret._

Sakura gaped at Sasuke's perfect cursive handwriting for about two minutes. She was sick? School had started quite a long time ago… Nothing important today, right?

Right?

Lets see… Football tryouts were in a few days… So, nope. Nothing important.

_Hey Hey_

_You You!_

_I don't like your Girlfriend!_

_No Way_

_No Way_

_I think you need a new one—_

Sakura hurriedly snatched her black PEBL off the wooden table and flipped it open.

"Hello?" She answered in the most manliest voice she could muster.

"Sakura, honey?"

"Mom?" Her voice became normal again.

"Are you alright there? Honey, how's boarding school?"

"Oh… It's peachy." Peachy? What the fuck?

"Sakura, I'm so glad you like it! How's Mrs. Cunningham?"

"Mrs. Cunningham?" She vaguely remembered her mother mentioning her as the headmistress of the school or something. "Oh! Yeah, her! She's very nice and I'm getting along well with her."

"Oh okay. Well, I just called to see how you were doing."

"Yeah… I'm learning lots of great stuff."

"Oooh, like what?"

"Uh…" Sakura looked around the room, praying for God to send her some information about etiquette. She guessed he heard her, since a gigantic book called "Learning Etiquette" in the bookcase in the corner of the room caught her eye. Psh. It was probably an Uchiha thing, but Sasuke didn't seem to have read it yet. She quickly opened it and flipped through the pages.

"I'm learning about uh, the differences between um, wine glasses."

"Wine glasses? Oh, do tell. I'd like to hear it."

"Well…" Sakura looked intently at the pictures and the descriptions on the page below her. "The really tall wine glass is for champagne. 'Cause then, if you use a normal wine glass, it'll spill, since champagne bubbles a lot. Oh—and they taught us how to pour it."

"My goodness! You sure learned a lot on your first day."

"Yes, about wine. Uh, I gotta go, mum."

"Okay, honey. Just don't get yourself in trouble, alright?"

"Okay, bye mum."

"Bye!"

_Click._

After Sakura hung up, she was sure to change her ring tone to something else. She threw her cell on the bed and decided to spend the rest of the time cleaning up and bandaging her chest and such stuff.

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

When Sakura got out of the shower and fixed her appearance, she roamed around the hall, avoiding the hell-room (she decided to call it) as much as she could. She could pretty much figure out that it was Itachi's room. She gawked and awed at the really pretty Uchiha Estate for about an hour until she got bored. And then she remembered seeing a computer somewhere in Sasuke's room…

She ran over to his bedroom and looked around. She was right. Surely, Sasuke wouldn't mind, right? She was only going to get on AIM.

_SakKicksAss16__has signed on_.

She smirked. And then an alert came up.

**BlackSharingan91 has sent you a message. **

She immediately clicked accept. She _loved_ it when people she didn't know sent her messages. No kidding.

**BlackSharingan91: **So I see you're using my computer.

**SakKicksAss16: **sasuke?

**BlackSharingan91:** Yes.

**SakKicksAss16: **oh, yeah. sorry about that but i was really bored.

**BlackSharingan91:** It's okay. When did you wake up?

**SakKicksAss16: **well, just an hour ago, i think.

**SakKicksAss16: **hey… since when could you instant message during school?

**BlackSharingan91: **iphone.

Sakura sighed. Of course.

**SakKicksAss16: **oh, cool. won't you get caught though?

**BlackSharingan91: **No. The teachers never notice.

**SakKicksAss16: **nice.

**BlackSharingan91: **The bell just rang. I'll see you later after school.

**SakKicksAss16: **wait

**BlackSharingan91: **?

**SakKicksAss16: **you sure you didn't tell anyone?

**BlackSharingan91: **Don't worry. No one knows except for Naruto and me. I haven't even told him about finding out yet.

**SakKicksAss16: **oh. thanks, sasuke! well, ttyl.

**BlackSharingan91: **bye.

_BlackSharingan91 has signed off._

She was smiling. Sasuke was so much more talkative online. And then she wondered how he got her screen name.

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

**Author's Note: You know what guys? I'm so sorry that this is such a crappy, going-nowhere chapter that you probably hate right now. Well, okay. It seems I'm very distracted at the moment with things that are very distracting…**

**Savvy?**

**Anyway, I'm very jealous of Sasuke. HE HAS AN IPHONE :O I went to check it out a few days ago and it was pretty awesome. I want one -.-**

**I hope you enjoyed this crappy chapter and then you can come and kill me.**

**I SWEAR I HAVE THE WHOLE NEXT CHAPTER OUT. In my head. So, till next time.**

**xoxotia**


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Poo. :[**

**edit: sorry about the underlining, but I fixed it. Haha yeah... This comp SUCKS ASS. **

**I'm really really really really late about this chapter, but who gives a fuck now. It's posted. More apologies in the author's note after chapter, if you want more.**

**A video everyone should watch: edit: fucking link won't work. **

**Got it from one of my reviewer's profiles. HOPE YOU DON'T MIND, RIKKU :D? Spread the love, huh? **

**Also—sorry I'm really really late about this chapter. I've been distracted… a LOT. FORGIVE MEEEE. T-T**

**Chapter Six**

Sakura yawned. This homework… was so boring… She knew all the answers, but there were so many pages. She scribbled down the answers on the sheets incessantly for seven minutes. Then it was time for her history essay about the history of Japan, which was about the way of the ninjas and such. History was probably the only challenging class for Sakura, but not _that _challenging. History just wasn't Sakura's thing. She sighed, put her pencil down and leaned back in her chair, staring at the full moon in the night sky. It was probably getting sort of late, but she didn't feel tired at all—she had drunk lots of coffee with extra sugar. And maybe some caffeine pills, but that was okay.

It was Tuesday, two days since school had begun and a day since Sasuke found out. So far, nothing had happened and it seemed that he already discussed it with Naruto. That was good.

Over the past day, Ino had kept calling her, talking about how sad that Sakura had gone to boarding school, since she couldn't join the fangirls and awe at Sasuke's hotness. What was so great about him, anyway? He was just a guy. With really soft pretty black hair. And pretty eyes. And really soft lips.

But all that didn't really matter much.

School was pretty fun, actually. She managed to talk to Neji about the whole Ten Ten thing. She explained she had no feelings whatsoever for Ten Ten and that Neji could have Ten Ten all to himself. Of course, he denied the fact that he was majorly crushing on her, but he had warmed up to Sakura. Sai hadn't. At all. He was _such_ a jerk, too. But that was partly what made school so fun—getting into verbal, and sometimes physical, fights with him.

The first school field trip was next Friday. A trip to the beach for four days… With the sister school—the school she used to go to. The trip was for science class, since they were studying marine animals and such, so the two schools decided that camping out near the beach would be a really good idea. But it wasn't so good for Sakura, because they'd make her go out in the water… And if they found out she was a boy?

"Gah… I just wished mum wouldn't have forced me into going to boarding school… then I wouldn't have complained about it to Naruto… then he wouldn't have made me come _here_. Ughh."

Sakura closed her eyes, but she smiled. It wasn't actually that bad… But she'd have to find away to get around the whole field trip thing.

Football tryouts were Friday… She'd totally kick Sai's ass, but she decided that she was a bit rusty from not playing for a while. Maybe she'd ask Shen to play with her later or something.

Sakura tipped her chair back to its normal position and picked up her pencil to start her essay.

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

"Ne, ne, Katsuuu," Naruto pleaded. "Please? Only for today."

"Naruto… You said that yesterday. You should've done your homework last night."

"Please?! If I don't, Kurenai-sensei will kill me!"

"Ugh…" Sakura groaned. Obviously, if she wasn't there, he would probably fail class by the end of the week. Unless he asked Sasuke for his homework, which was quite possible. "Just make sure you finish copying down the answers before she comes in."

"Ah, thanks Katsu-chan!!! I'll treat you to Ichiraku after school or something!!!"

"Whatever, Naruto."

Sakura twitched as Sai turned around in his seat to smirk at her.

"Oh, so Katsu's letting his friends copy his homework now, eh?"

She _really, really, really_ was in a grumpy mood that morning. Really, honestly, and truly. So it _really_ wasn't her fault when she jumped out of her seat and hoisted him up out of his seat by his dress shirt collar. And when she punched him in the nose.

"Yeah, I _am_. Gotta problem with that?!" She hissed as he went flying into his desk, knocking it over. All her classmates looked at her and a few of them snickered. Sai untangled himself from his desk and chair and stood up.

"You bastard! Why'd you do that?"

Sakura smiled and slid back into her chair, just as Ms. Kurenai walked in the class.

"Sai? Is there a problem?" Ms. Kurenai eyed his fallen over desk and chair, then looking at him, her red eyes glowing, expecting an answer.

"Uh, n-no ma'am," He stuttered. And then he looked at Sakura. "Wait, yeah, he just—"

"Good, so I supposed we can start class now?"

Defeated, Sai nodded and began to set up his desk and chair the way it was.

"Okay class… Today we're going to learn about…"

Sakura opened her notebook, tuned Ms. Kurenai out, and began to doodle.

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

After a few classes of doodling, she finally caught Shen in the hallway.

"Shen!" Sakura reached out in front of her and pulled him back by the collar, slightly choking him. She put on the most innocent face she had when he turned around, looking a bit annoyed. But when he saw her, he smiled, waiting for her to speak. "Can you play football with me later today? I really need some practice for Friday."

He nodded and hurried off to his English class, leaving her in the almost-empty hall. She decided that skipping the next class wouldn't be much fun since being by herself wasn't her idea of fun.

She skipped off to History class.

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

"NANI?!"

"Eh… Well… I mean, it's more fun with more people playing, right?"

"NANI?!"

"Uhr… But when you asked you didn't specify _how_ many people, right?"

"NANI?!"

"Uhm… Please? I mean, it's better with more people, I guess…"

"……… Gahhh. But does _Sasuke_ have to be here?!"

"What's so bad about him?"

"Nevermind…" Sakura mumbled, deciding to end the argument.

When Sakura came home just an hour ago, she ran into her room and grabbed a plain black t-shirt and her gym shorts to put on for football. When she finished using the bathroom, she checked to see if any of her medical bandages were showing through the shirt, since she was hasty in tying them up. Nope, no bandages showing. She left the room, came down two floors and walked out of the back door, into Shen's back yard, which was exactly like a big meadow with freshly cut grass. She found Shen waiting for her there with a football.

There stood Naruto. And Chouji. And Lee. And Neji. And some guy she barely knew. And _Sasuke_.

"Well what's so bad about Sasuke?" Shen suddenly asked again, hoping for an answer this time. Sakura looked at him. "I mean, he's not that bad, although sometimes he can be a bit grumpy."

"Oh, well… I'm just worried about all of you guys. I'm gonna kick all your asses." Sakura smirked. "So watch out. What're our teams?"

Shen smiled at her question. "We're going to play a very interesting game of one on seven tackle football."

She looked at him, questioningly.

"We're all going against you, since you're the one who asked for help, of course. So we're gonna try to stop you from getting there," Shen pointed at one side of his incredibly large backyard to the other side, "to there."

Sakura's questioning look turned into a look of understanding, but she was actually feeling pretty bad inside. She'd have to _run_ about a hundred miles trying to avoid seven muscular guys trying to tackle her… and at the same time keeping the ball safely tucked under her arm. But she could handle it.

She nodded at Shen, took the football from him, and jogged over to the side of his backyard that he pointed at. The other guys spread around the field, but they were all somewhat close to her. Shen put up three fingers and counted down to one. The moment he put his last finger down, she sped off to the other side.

They were all coming at her and _shit_, they were fast.

By the time Sakura got to the other side without getting pounced on, she was out of breath and her black t-shirt clung on to her back. She was tired and sweaty, thanks to the fucking hot sun, but she wouldn't give up just now. As she was panting for breath, she heard the crunch of grass from footsteps behind her and she turned around. It was Shen.

"Hey, good job. Now it's going to be two against six, so you can work on your passing."

So the afternoon started out pretty well and ended when everyone had to go home, at around seven. She was sure the other guys came for practice too, since they all signed up for football, but the practice session helped her out the most. Everyone helped Sakura on perfecting her skills, so when they all had to go, she felt so confident about Friday. She'd definitely show Sai.

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

The next day in school consisted of constant glares from Sai and his buddies. That was about all that happened for the whole day. Nothing interesting. Until the end of school came: The Sasuke fangirls were back. But this time, they had different questions for Sasuke. Rather than the usual variations of the question: "Will you go out with me?", they asked him that one simple question that made Sakura want to climb up a tree and get eaten by a rabid monkey.

"Ohmehgawd, Sasuke-kuuunnnnnn, you lost your first kiss to a guy?! Was it KATSU?!"

Absolutely. Horrifying. The last thing she needed was a rumor going around that she was gay. And if glares could really stab, she'd be a little less than a bloody pulp right then.

"Katsu! Katsu, oh my God, tell me the truth—did you really kiss Sasuke? Or did _he_ kiss _you_?!"

It was Ino. Even though Ino was her best friend, she could get extremely annoying. Why was she all over Sasuke anyway? She should be with that lazy Shikamaru guy.

"It was a game of spin the bottle. I was under duress." Sakura explained calmly. She didn't think her reasoning reached Ino though, because Ino was still standing there, glaring at her. Sakura tried some more. "I swear, I don't like him! Why don't you get it?! I'm. Not. Gay. I don't like Sasuke. Really, I don't, so you can have him all to yourself. In fact, I'll _help_ you get close to him! Okay?!"

That seemed okay to Ino, because she smiled at her and skipped off.

"Katsu-kun!"

Oh my God, they were so annoying. SO annoying. Wait… did someone just call her Katsu-_kun_? Sakura looked over her shoulder to see a small crowd of girls standing beside her. She'd never seen them before… They weren't part of the Sasuke fanclub, were they?

"Katsu-kun, I love you!" One girl with brown hair stepped up to Sakura. The others followed.

"Katsu-kun, will you go out with me?" Asked a girl to her left.

"Katsu-kun, you're so hot!" some girls yelled.

Sakura slowly backed away.

"Need some help?" asked an uncaring voice behind her. She yelped and spun around, facing a smirking Sasuke.

"Uhhh… Yeah. Who are those people?" She pointed to the crowd of girls.

"Can't you tell? They're your fangirls."

The thought had never seemed to cross Sakura's mind. Fangirls? For _her_? Well yeah, she looked like a guy… Would she have to deal with these people everyday? Dear fucking Lord. She hurried down the hallway, followed by Sasuke… followed by a bunch of screaming fangirls.

"I can feel your pain, really, I do." Sakura said, keeping her eyes on Shen's car, which was parked far away.

"Hn."

"Yeah, and it's really bad. I'm going to go insane, I swear. Oh my God, how do you get rid of them?!"

"Ignore them."

"That's kinda hard. Whatever, my ride's here. Bye."

"Bye."

And so Sakura climbed in to Shen's limousine and drove off.

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

**Author's Note: Bad week, you don't want to know. And I'm grounded. But I'm sneaking on to post this shitty chappy up. It's shitty becauseeee……..**

**Well, just cause. And I'm really sorry. My writer's block has been removed, so I won't be that late next post!**

**Love y'all,**

**xoxotia**


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto…**

**Chapter Seven**

"… Katsu."

Sakura was about to yell "fuck yeah", but she decided it would be better if she didn't. She was in the friggin' football team now! They'd just have to figure out what position she'd be in… Hopefully not quarterback. She just didn't like being the center of attention sometimes. Especially now that she had a fanclub, which she was still spazzing out about.

"And Sai."

With that, the coach dismissed them and stalked off to some other area in the gym. Sakura's face turned from one full of jubilee into one of distress and depression. She didn't know how to feel—she got in… but Sai got in as well. She didn't see how well he was doing during the tryouts because she was concentrating on herself, but really, why was God so cruel? Her friends didn't seem to notice that she was half depressed and debating over whether God was a sadist or not, since they were patting her on the back, congratulating each other happily. Sakura glanced at Sasuke, but he wasn't looking her way.

"KATSU-CHAN!!!!" Yelled Naruto, even though he was less than four feet away from her. "You made it in! Yay!!!"

"Yeah… Now I have to go home and do all my homework."

"No you don't, save that for the weekend," Naruto's eyes were shining, "because I promised everyone we could go and hang out at Main Event!"

Sakura snorted, and reached over to open her locker. "Main Event? Isn't that for little kids that are bored out of their asses?"

"It's fun! We can play laser tag all day long!"

"Well, if you insist…" She sighed as she took out her messenger bag and slung it over her shoulder. She shut her locker and proceeded to follow Naruto out of the school, but she stopped. "What about my ride?"

"Shen's coming with us. He told his driver to pick him up at Main Event at nine."

"Oh…"

"The girls are coming too!"

Sakura suddenly felt queasy.

"Which… ones?"

"Uh, the ones that were at Sasuke's sleepover," Naruto counted his fingers for a few minutes until he spoke. "… and I think a few other people too."

Sakura shuddered. She did _not_ want to hang out with girls at the moment because of her second encounter with _her _rabid fangirls two days ago. She'd finally figured out their routine—the fangirls came every other day and it was utterly impossible to get out of the school with _two_ groups of fangirls filling the hall way. Luckily, they stayed after school for the football tryouts, so there was no need to hide from them.

"Ah… Cool." She said, as she walked beside Naruto, through the school's front garden (damn, that school was rich) and into the parking lot. There were two black limos waiting for them there. Naruto clambered into the limo with Sasuke in it, pulling Sakura along with him. They chose to sit directly across from Sasuke. Neji and Shen were also in the limo, Shen talking to Neji and slurping his Sonic slushie. They stopped talking and nodded at her. She nodded back.

"Laser tag, laser tag, laser tag, wheee, laser tag…" Naruto kept whispering excitedly under his breath, causing Sasuke's left eye to twitch. Sakura looked worriedly at Naruto, and then at Sasuke.

"Shut up, dobe."

"Hey! I'm not a dobe! TEME!!!"

"Whatever."

"You're a teme!"

"...Dobe."

"You're mean!!! Teme! Teme, teme, teme, teme!"

"You're still a dobe and yelling at me can't change that fact."

"Teme, teme, teme, teme!!"

Sakura was bemused. She could understand why Naruto was acting like this, but _Sasuke_? She looked at Shen and Neji, but they seemed to be used to this. After another four minutes of a heated argument between the two boys, Sakura became really annoyed.

"Guys, _shut_. _Up_." She hissed. They suddenly stopped yelling insults at each other and looked at her, surprised. Sasuke immediately looked away and became his usual brooding self and Naruto grinned widely at Sakura. Then he gave her a wink.

"Aren't you excited, Katsu? Laser tag's gonna be soo fun!" Naruto began to bounce up and down in the black leather seat. Sakura wondered if he was high off something, but she realized that he always acted like that. "But too bad Sakura-chan can't be there, huh?"

Sakura coughed a yes.

"Ne, it's too bad she has to go to _boarding_ school," Naruto look pointedly at Sasuke, who was now listening to their conversation, "because of that really mean mummy of hers."

"Boarding school?" Sakura knew realization had dawned on Sasuke since he was the one to ask that question. His piercing coal black eyes stared right Sakura's bright green ones.

"Yeah! Boarding school."

"And Sakura is her name?"

"Yeah, Sasuke-teme, that's what I said!"

Sasuke muttered her name under his breath and turned his head to gaze out the window, and Sakura looked murderously at Naruto, but he was engulfed in a deep conversation with Neji and Shen. So Sasuke had found out her name. Oh well, it wasn't so bad—it didn't really matter anyway. But she really didn't want Sasuke to know her name... It's wasn't like he was gonna call her that any time soon. Hopefully.

The limo slowed to a smooth stop in front of main event. Sakura could see through the windows that a few teenagers were staring at the limo, pointing and smiling. They all climbed out and Sasuke waved goodbye to his driver, just as the others arrived in the other limo. Gaara, Chouji, Lee, and Kiba climbed out and joined their group. Sakura looked up at the large building—she hadn't been there for years. The last time she was there was probably when she was… eight or nine. She followed everyone inside.

They were greeted by a chorus of squeals as they entered the dark building. Or, at least, _Sasuke_ was. Sakura didn't know that Sasuke was well known with girls around the whole area. She never knew who he was—she just remember Ino always mentioning him, but it never seemed important to Sakura, so she just tuned Ino out whenever she talked about him. And she didn't spend much time with guys that weren't in her neighborhood, but she knew Naruto and Shikamaru since she met them at a party once.

"Oi! Neji! Katsu! Over here!" She heard a very familiar voice call. Turning around, she saw a group of her friends, _including_ Ino, waving and gesturing at them to come over. She was about to run over and hug them all, telling them how much she'd missed them, but she stopped herself in time. Instead, she followed the guys over to them, by the bowling area and pool area.

The two groups joined into one big one as they wandered down to the arcade section. A few of them wanted to play DDR (for those of you who don't know what that is, you're extremely stupid), some decided to head back to the bowling area, some decided to play pool, and some headed for the food court. However, they all agreed to meet in two hours for laser tag. Sakura just followed Naruto around until she walked away in embarrassment when he asked the one of the cashiers of the food court if they had any ramen. So she sauntered off, walking aimlessly around the pool area, where Sasuke and Neji were playing pool. After Neji cursed about unsuccessfully getting the eleven ball into one of the holes, he noticed Sakura silently watching the game.

"Hey, wanna grab a pool stick over there and join the game?" Neji asked, just as Sasuke got the eight ball into a hole. Sasuke glanced and Sakura and waited for her to grab a stick and join the game. She pretty much sucked at pool, but she didn't want to tell them that. They'd find out soon enough. She put her hand in position with the pool stick, aiming to hit the three ball…

She guessed she hit too hard, and it really wasn't her fault that Sasuke was standing there. After she "nudged" the white ball with her pool stick, it flew off the table and straight into Sasuke's crotch.

"AAAAAAAARUGHHH!!!" He yelled and fell to the floor, in a fetal position. Sakura stared down at him, not knowing what to do. Neji was shaking with laughter and clutching on to his pool stick for support. People who were playing pool were now looking strangely at Sasuke, and some people just laughed and turned back to playing pool. After a few minutes of staring at Sasuke, Sakura decided to help him up, but saw no way to help him up, since both his hands were clutching his crotch. So she just crouched down next to him.

"Oh my gosh, Sasuke, I'm really sorry, I didn't see you standing there and I sorta hit too hard and, like, I really didn't mean it, so please forgive me, I'm really sorry, I won't do it again, I promise—"

"Ughh…"

"—And I'm really, really, really sorry—"

"My _balls_….. Ughh.."

"—so please, please, please, just please forgive me—"

"..the paaiinn…"

"—okay, so can you get up or do you need help—"

"Oh, they _hurt_…"

"—I can help you up, you know."

Sasuke slowly shook his head and reached out to grab the edge of the pool table and yank himself up. Neji was still laughing, but he immediately stopped when Sasuke glared at him. Neji coughed.

"Ahem, right. Moving on…"

Neji and Sasuke went, and it was Sakura's turn again. But Sakura dropped her pool stick on the green carpeted floor. "Really, guys, I won't play anymore. I suck at pool. I'm hungry, anyway, so I'll go to the food court."

A look of relief replaced the somewhat fearful look that filled Sasuke's face, but Neji protested.

"It's okay, I'm hungry and I might neuter someone if we keep playing," Sakura glanced at Sasuke, "So I'll see you guys at laser tag."

Neji just laughed and said goodbye.

By herself again, Sakura roamed around the arcade section until she spotted a few of her friends playing DDR. Ino against Ten Ten. Shikamaru was standing next to them, watching them through bored eyes. Sakura was under the impression that Ino was trying to impress a certain someone.

"Hah! You can never beat me, Ten Ten!"

"That's 'cause you're on, like, standard mode and I'm on heavy!"

"Fine! I'll switch…"

Sakura sniggered as she passed by them, and made her way through a horde of kids dressed in black with dyed spiky hair. She made sure not to touch any of them, in fear of getting beat up. A few of them glared at her as she passed by. She finally made it to the food court, where Naruto was eating pizza with Chouji. Naruto looked up, a slice of pepperoni pizza halfway in his mouth.

"Katsu-chan," Naruto said with his mouth full of cheese and pepperoni's, "Come eat some pizza with us!"

And so she sat down and filled her empty stomach with the goodness of pizza.

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

"LASER TAG!!!!!" Yelled Naruto as he punched his fist in the air. "LET'S GET TWO PASSES FOR ARENA 2!!"

"We already decided on that a long time ago, Naruto." Sasuke mumbled.

They all bought there tickets at the counter and waited in line for the people to let them in the room with the vests. When they finally let them in and finished explaining the rules of laser tag, they all grabbed vests and split into two groups: boys against girls. There were a few other people they didn't know, but some joined the boys and the others joined the girls. Sakura recognized them as the group of scary kids she bumped into earlier.

"Okay, guys! Are you ready?" A teenage girl who worked there led them into their base—they were the blue team. Everyone gave her a cheerful yes, especially Naruto.

And then the game began.

Sakura sprinted off to the first floor without being caught running and hid behind a pillar. She crouched down and looked through the holes in the pillar and spotted a few green team people. She began to shoot at them.

"Emily! Someone's shooting at us!" Cried the small girl she was shooting at. Her twin looked around and saw Sakura's blue-lighted vest, and pointed at her. The twins ran toward Sakura's pillar, but she fled across the room, shooting the two while making her escape. She ended up in front of the green base, but there were only two people guarding it—Hinata and Ten Ten. They were too busy with a Naruto and Shen shooting at them, so Sakura took that chance to shoot the base about a billion times before the two green members noticed her. She stuck her tongue out and ran back to her base to refill her ammo. This time, she went up to the second floor, leaving Shikamaru and someone she didn't know to guard their base. Suddenly—

"You are now in Rapid Fire mode." Her vest spoke to her in a deep robotic voice.

"Fuck yeah!" She yelled.

"No cussing!" Yelled back someone patrolling from the first floor.

Sakura found a few members of the green team running toward their base and she began shooting. Ino, Temari, and Emily's twin immediately turned back to their base, trying to look for the person shooting them. Sakura kept shooting them until they went up the slope through their base to the second floor. She hurried to hide behind a pillar, keeping her eye on them—

**CRASH.**

She fell on her back, a body sprawled on top of hers. She could see from the lights glowing from his vest that he was on the green team, but she didn't know who he was. He pushed his body up from hers with his arms, her head in between his hands. His knees were jammed in between her legs, so he lifted them and rested them on either side of her legs. He peered down at her with his ice blue eyes. There was something _very_ familiar about him…

"Hey man, sorry about that…Wait—You…"

He put his head closer to hers, making her blush, and squinted his eyes. His jaw dropped.

"Sakura?!"

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

**Author's Note: HAHAHA CLIFFIE!!!**

**I LOVE CLIFFIES!**

**Yeah… Anyway, this post wasn't as late, I hope. What's funny about this chapter was that when I decided they were going to go to Main Event and I started writing about it, a few hours later my friend invites me to go with her. **

**Thank you, reviewers! I love you guys—you guys keep me writing. Next chapter will be up soon, I hope.**

**xoxotia**


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: I do not own NARUTO DD:**

**Sighhh… This chapter came up pretty fast. Warning: EXTREMELY LONG PHONE AND AIM CONVERSATION IN HERE. Hehehe, anyway, enjoy.**

**Recap**

_She fell on her back, a body sprawled on top of hers. She could see from the lights glowing from his vest that he was on the green team, but she didn't know who he was. He pushed his body up from hers with his arms, her head in between his hands. His knees were jammed in between her legs, so he lifted them and rested them on either side of her legs. He peered down at her with his ice blue eyes. There was something __very__ familiar about him…_

"_Hey man, sorry about that…Wait—You…"_

_He put his head closer to hers, making her blush, and squinted his eyes. His jaw dropped._

"_Sakura?!"_

**Chapter Eight**

And then it hit her.

"Sh-Shawn?" She stuttered out, incredulous, before she could stop herself. Oh, just _wonderful,_ she told herself. She said his name and now he was sure it was her—Haruno Sakura. He pushed himself to his feet, standing up, and then offering his hand to her. She grabbed it and he pulled her up. Shawn was smiling like a maniac, but she could tell he was a bit confused. He immediately pulled her into a tight hug without saying anything, his soft black hair brushing her cheek. He let go of her, still smiling. She noticed that he had a lip ring, which was gleaming in the green light.

"Sakura-chan! I can't believe I'd see you again, especially here! I mean, I haven't seen you in forever…," Shawn paused, examining her hair, "…What happened to your long pink hair…?"

His hand stroked her somewhat messy dark brown hair, lost deep in thought… or memories, Sakura thought. She didn't have time to answer his question, since a moment later he was being shot by—Sakura turned around—Sasuke. Shawn grinned at her again.

"See ya later!" He said, before he turned and ran away. Sakura was also about to do the same, but Sasuke stopped her.

"Why didn't you shoot him?" Sasuke asked in an annoyed voice.

"I—I was about to." She lied. His eyes narrowed in anger, but maybe Sakura was imagining it—it was pretty hard to tell in the dark.

"Sure," He said, sarcasm evident in his voice, "when you're standing there in front of him for two whole minutes, letting him touch your hair."

"Whatever, Sasuke. It's none of your business," Sakura snapped, moving past him to reach the green base. Jesus, what was Sasuke's problem? What did it matter to him, anyway? Besides—she should be angry at _him _for interrupting such an important reunion between her and Shawn. Instead of looking for Shawn, she took out her anger on Ten Ten by making her Sakura's Victim for the rest of the game.

When the game ended, Sakura tried looking for Shawn, asking Shen to save her spot in the line for the second game. She quickly looked through the arcade section, the food court, and basically all of Main Event. After four minutes and her second search of the arcade section, she gave up and began to head back to the laser tag line, when she felt a light tap on her shoulder. She spun around, looking directly into the icy blue eyes of Shawn. What seemed like a friend of his stood next to him.

"Looking for me?" He asked, his smile wide, which showed his perfectly straight white teeth. Just then, Shen called her over to come back, since the game was just starting. Cursing very loudly, Sakura reached into her messenger bag, pulling out a pen and her math notebook. She scribbled down her cell phone number, tore off the paper, and stuffed it into Shawn's hands. Then she made a dash for the laser tag entrance, waving goodbye to him. Then she heard his friend snort.

"I thought you said she was a girl."

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Sakura was lying on a black leather couch, legs draped over the couch's arm, flipping through channels on the plasma TV in the theater room at Shen's place. Suddenly—

_Paper bags and plastic hearts  
All are belongings in shopping carts  
It's goodbye  
But we got one more night  
Let's get drunk and drive around—_

She pressed the 'off' button on the remote control and reached for her cell phone inside her messenger bag on the floor. Flipping it open, she answered it in an annoyed tone.

"Hello?"

"Hey."

"Shawn?" Sakura began to smile, the feeling of annoyance fading away.

"That's right! How are you?"

"Hey! I'm doing good. I was so surprised earlier… I didn't know you moved here!"

"Yeah, I moved here a year ago. Sakura, at first I didn't think it was you 'cause the long pink hair was missing and everything. But I still recognized you!"

"Well… That's what being best friends for three years is for." She heard Shawn laugh. Then there was silence… Sakura didn't know what to say.

"Sakura-chan… I missed you a lot when you moved."

"Same. You've changed a lot, too. Your hair used to be brown, not black and now you've got that awesome lip ring."

"Heh, yeah, I guess I've changed. What school do you go to now? Wait—that reminds me. You were wearing a school uniform at Main Event, weren't you?"

Sakura's heart beat got faster.

"Uhhh… Yeah."

"But that can't be, 'cause you were wearing a boy's uniform and it had that gold leaf crest on the breast pocket thing of your dress shirt… Which means you go to, uh, West Konoha Academy?"

"Yeah." Sakura wished he hadn't noticed. Then she heard Shawn laugh again.

"Right, right."

"No really, I go to an all boys school. You see, it's because…" And Sakura explained the whole boarding school thing and then Naruto's idea of going to West Konoha High. A few minutes later, she finished. "…and he found out because his insane-ass killer of a brother was talking too loud."

There was a long silence after she finished. She looked at her cell phone screen to see if he had hung up, but he didn't. She put the cell phone back to her ear.

"Hello? You still there?"

"Yeah… But… But… That's just so _weird_. You kissed a _girl_?! And you have a _fanclub?!_"

Sakura shuddered at the memories.

"Yep. It's all really… strange, I guess. I mean, she's my really good friend and everything from school. Well, from my old school. North Konoha High. It's West Konoha High's sister school. And the fan club thing is really annoying."

"So that's where you went… Wow, that's just amazing."

"Hey, what school do you go to?"

"Uh, Shepton High School."

She tried to remember where that was… Oh yeah, it was one of the private schools associated with the Konoha High schools.

"Cool. Oh, by the way… My boy name is Katsu. Last name is Akita. So whenever we hang out, just call me Katsu. None of that 'Sakura-chan' stuff, okay?"

"Okay, sure. Katsu. Got it."

"Well," Sakura glanced down at her watch, "I have to go eat dinner now, before Shen has to come searching for me in this huge ass mansion of his. I'll talk to you later—oh, and what's your screen name for AIM? We never really had screen names before I moved."

"Oh, it's Cean Chaffit—Gotta pen? It's Cean spelled c-e-a-n and Chaffit spelled c-h-a-f-f-i-t," He spelled it out as Sakura wrote down his screen name on the back of her hand with a black pen.

"'Kay, thanks! You'll know my screen name when you see it. Talk to you later, bye!"

"Bye."

She hung up with a satisfied smile on her face.

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

"Okay… Cean Chaffit, here I come," Sakura said as she added his screen name to her buddy list.

_Cean Chaffit has signed on_.

She clicked on the little box that popped on the bottom right side of her screen.

**SakKicksAss16: **heyy

**Cean Chaffit's Auto-Response: i'm eating dinner, be back at around 7:15**

Disappointed, she frowned and looked at her watch. 7:00… Fifteen more minutes.

_BlackSharingan91 has signed on_.

"Hmmm," She said to herself. She clicked on his screen name.

**SakKicksAss16: **hi

**BlackSharingan91: **Hi.

**SakKicksAss16: **watsup??

**BlackSharingan91: **Homework.

**SakKicksAss16: **cool.

Sakura didn't know what to say after that, but a few seconds later…

**BlackSharingan91: **So it looked like you knew that guy from laser tag.

She bit her lip, feeling a bit uncomfortable bringing up Shawn around Sasuke. She didn't know why, though…

**SakKicksAss16: **yeah he's cool

**SakKicksAss16:** i've known him ever since i was seven.

**SakKicksAss16:** we were best friends for three years, but then i moved here and we sorta broke apart.

**SakKicksAss16: **you know, lack of communication.

**BlackSharingan91: **Oh. How did he know it was you, though?

**SakKicksAss16: **well, we were best friends!!

**SakKicksAss16: **of course he'd know it was me, even if i cut and dyed my hair.

**SakKicksAss16: **and…

**SakKicksAss16: **of course i'd know if it was him, too.

Sakura waited for a reply from Sasuke, but it didn't come. She sighed and leaned back into the fox fur covered chair, but then…

**Vballgrl4ever: **SAKURA!!!!!!!!

**SakKicksAss16: **INO!!!!

**Vballgrl4ever: **OMG I MISS U SO MUCH HOW IS BOARDING SCHOOL?

**SakKicksAss16: **uhh, not that great.

**SakKicksAss16: **i'm not learning that much

**SakKicksAss16: **lol

**Vballgirl4ever: **haha etiqette skewl isnt that much fun is it

**SakKicksAss16: **lol yeah.

**Vballgirl4ever: **omg btw this new kid moved in with shen

**Vballgirl4ever: **u know shen right?

**SakKicksAss16: **uh yeah … i think so

**Vballgirl4ever: **yeah the new kids name is katsu

**SakKicksAss16: **lol cool

**Vballgirl4ever: **omg and gess what else!!!!

**SakKicksAss16: **…what.

**Vballgirl4ever: **HE KISSED MY SASUKE-KUN!!!!!!!!

**SakKicksAss16: **ew… so is he gay or something?

**Vballgirl4ever: **no he says it was cuzz he was forced to or sumthin

**SakKicksAss16: **lol

**SakKicksAss16:** right

**Vballgirl4ever: **so any cool ppl at ur skewl?

**SakKicksAss16: **psh are you kidding me?!

**SakKicksAss16: **etiquette school is hell.

**Vballgirl4ever: **awww when u come back we're deff holding a party!

**SakKicksAss16: **haha thanks ino.

**Vballgirl4ever: **o g2g

**Vballgirl4ever:** dad makin me do dishes this time

**SakKicksAss16: **kk i'll ttyl

**Vballgirl4ever has signed off. (19:09:32)**

Just then, Sasuke replied.

**BlackSharingan91: **Where did you move from?

**SakKicksAss16: **uhh some small ass town called suna

**BlackSharingan91: **That's where Gaara is from.

**SakKicksAss16: **wow… you serious?

**BlackSharingan91: **I would not kid about something like that.

**SakKicksAss16: **right.

**BlackSharingan91: **You're name is Sakura?

**SakKicksAss16: **…yeah. stupid name, i know.

**BlackSharingan91: **It's not a stupid name.

**SakKicksAss16: **my parents only named me that name cuzz my hair was originally pink

**BlackSharingan91: **Pink?

**SakKicksAss16: **yeah… you know, that really light shade of red.

**BlackSharingan91: **I know what pink is.

**SakKicksAss16: ** uh huh

**BlackSharingan91: **Was it really pink before you dyed it?

**SakKicksAss16: **yeah, i was born with PINK HAIR, okay?

**BlackSharingan91: **Okay. So can I call you… Pinky?

Sakura's fingers twitched. How _dare_ he…

**SakKicksAss16: HELL FUCKING NO!!!!!**

**BlackSharingan91: **Okay, okay. I was kidding.

**SakKicksAss16: **if you call me pinky, i'm gonna kill you tomorrow….. wait……. i meant on monday.

**BlackSharingan91: **Well we're seeing each other tomorrow anyway. Naruto's dragging us all to Ichiraku.

**SakKicksAss16: **euughh… oh yeah… why does naruto NEVER tell me about going places

**BlackSharingan91: **I don't know.

**SakKicksAss16: **yeah, yeah, w/e.

**SakKicksAss16: **and i'll also forgive you for accusing me of being annoying

**BlackSharingan91: **What are you talking about?

**SakKicksAss16: **remember, at your sleepover?

**SakKicksAss16: **you were all 'oh, she's ino's friend, so she MUST be incredibly annoying'

**BlackSharingan91: **And I guessed right.

**SakKicksAss16: **HEYYY!!!!

Even though a comment like that would've made her mad, she was smiling.

**BlackSharingan91: **And Naruto had to tell me inconspicuously what your name was, because he promised to after I talked to him about you.

**SakKicksAss16: **oh… yeah, if he told you directly what my name was, people could overhear and stuff

**BlackSharingan91: **Precisely. But, of course, he's too much of a dobe to tell me on AIM.

**SakKicksAss16: **lol

_Cean Chaffit has returned from away_.

**SakKicksAss16: **hey, brb.

**BlackSharingan91: **Okay.

Sakura's smile widened and she clicked on Shawn's screen name.

**SakKicksAss16: **guess whoooo.

**Cean Chaffit: **hmmm I really don't know.

**SakKicksAss16: **aww c'monn

**Cean Chaffit: **okay, lets see.

**Cean Chaffit: **sak…kicks…ass…

**SakKicksAss16: **lol

**Cean Chaffit: **huh.

**Cean Chaffit: **no one has seemed to come to my mind so far.

**SakKicksAss16: **hahaha

**Cean Chaffit: **lol, jkjk

**Cean Chaffit: **hi saku

**SakKicksAss16: **heyyy

**Cean Chaffit: **doing anything tomorrow?

Sakura remembered that Naruto was taking them all to Ichiraku's, but she'd much rather spend the day with Shawn.

**SakKicksAss16: **sadly, yes.

**SakKicksAss16: **naruto's taking us to ichiraku's

**Cean Chaffit: **oh…

**Cean Chaffit: **its okay then

**Cean Chaffit: **who's going with you?

**SakKicksAss16: **uhh a bunch of people

**SakKicksAss16: **lets see…

**SakKicksAss16: **sasuke, neji, shen, gaara, chouji, and Shikamaru

**SakKicksAss16: **and some girls, too

**Cean Chaffit: **wait

**Cean Chaffit: **is Sasuke's last name Uchiha?

**SakKicksAss16: **yeah

An image of that gigantic golden "U" on Sasuke's fence thing appeared in her head.

**Cean Chaffit: **what? really?!

**SakKicksAss16: **yeah? you know him?

**Cean Chaffit: **are you insane?!

**Cean Chaffit: **everyone knows him!

**Cean Chaffit: **it's THE UCHIHA SASUKE.

**SakKicksAss16: **uhh…so?

**Cean Chaffit: **he's the son of Uchiha Fugaku!!

**Cean Chaffit: **founder of Uchiha Corp.!!!!!!!!

**SakKicksAss16: **what?!

**SakKicksAss16: **NO FUCKING WAY

_No wonder they're so effing rich!_, Sakura thought out loud. She knew about Uchiha Corp… And she knew Sasuke's last name was Uchiha, but she never put the two together… And that also meant that his mother was Uchiha Mikoto—one of the top models.

**SakKicksAss16: **omg i'm so stupid…

**Cean Chaffit: **wow…

**SakKicksAss16: **no wonder so many girls are after him.

**Cean Chaffit: **well, he _is_ pretty hot.

**SakKicksAss16: **wtf

**Cean Chaffit: **lol jkjkk

**SakKicksAss16:** lol

**Cean Chaffit: **i gotta go, my mom's yelling at me to do my hw.

**SakKicksAss16:** oh—say hi to her for me!

**SakKicksAss16: **and to your dad

**SakKicksAss16: **:

**Cean Chaffit: **…okay, i will.

**Cean Chaffit: **bye

**SakKicksAss16: **byee

**Cean Chaffit has signed off. (19:21:04)**

"Okay, going back to Sasuke…"

She clicked on Sasuke's window.

**SakKicksAss16: **okay, back

**BlackSharingan91: **Hi.

**BlackSharingan91: **Katsu…

**SakKicksAss16: **yes?

**BlackSharingan91: **I want you to be careful around Shawn.

**SakKicksAss16: **what?

**BlackSharingan91: **Just be careful around him.

**SakKicksAss16: **why?

**SakKicksAss16: **he's _my _friend

**SakKicksAss16: **and i can do whatever i want with him

**BlackSharingan91: **I have to go.

**SakKicksAss16: **…bye.

**BlackSharingan91: **Bye.

**BlackSharingan91 has signed off. (19:24:58)**

"And," Sakura thought out loud once more, anger in her voice, "since when did I tell him Shawn's name…"

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

**Author's Note: Crappy chapter, sorry, BLEHHHHH. **

**Long ass AIM convo's.**

**And oooh, do I spy a somewhat jealous Sasuke?? Or maybe not. Hmmmmm… Wanna find out :D ??**

**Yeah, w/e. **

**Anyway—THANK YOU ALL FOR REVIEWING!!! I got this chappy up faster than I thought I would (although half this chapter consisted of AIM chats…) so yeah. Next chapter—ICHIRAKU'S!!! MUEHEHE!!**

**xoxotia **


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: Me no own Narutooo.**

**WARNING, WARNING: EXTREMELY SHORT CHAPTER BELOW. BE CAREFUL WHEN VIEWING. **

**Chapter Nine**

"Eh… I don't really like the chicken with ramen stuff," said Sakura as she examined Ichiraku's menu.

"Whatta 'bout beef with some seaweed and eggs?" Naruto suggested, leaning over to his right to look at her menu. Then he looked at Sasuke. "Sasuke-teme, what're you getting??"

"Spicy… and, uh, I'm getting beef." Sasuke said, not bothering to look up from his menu to glance at Naruto.

"Whatever, let's just order," Shikamaru mumbled, waving at a waitress so she could take their orders.

"Oh my Gawd," She squealed when she saw Sasuke, "How are you Sasuke-kun??"

"I'll have spicy ramen with seaweed and beef. Don't put that many onions in it."

"Okay, Sasuke-kun." She replied in her saccharine voice as she wrote down his order. It made Sakura shudder. The waitress took everyone else's orders, threw Sasuke a what seemed to be a sexy look, and left the table.

As they were talking about which girls and boys from each of their schools were absolutely hot, Sakura stared out the window, looking at the pristine blue sky. A few pigeons were perched on the roof of the store across from Ichiraku's. Numerous people were walking quickly up and down the sidewalks with arms full shopping bags, talking on their cell phones, or to their friends next to them. It was all so busy outside, everyone bustling and shopping, and to top it all off, it was a wonderful day. Suddenly, her view was blocked by a tall person in a black shirt and really tight-looking black jeans… Her gaze lifted from his waist to his face. Icy blue eyes stared straight back at her.

"Uh…guys? I'll be back in a second," Sakura announced to everyone at the table. Naruto and Hinata slid out of the booth so Sakura could get out. Before she walked off, Sasuke's obsidian eyes caught hers—but this time, they weren't emotionless at all. Worry and fear showed, but before he could say anything, Sakura turned away and hurried to the entrance of the restaurant. She pushed the door and the cool draft greeted her, a contrast to the steaming hot temperature inside Ichiraku's.

"Shawn!" Sakura threw her arms around him, hugging him so tightly and with so much force that Shawn almost toppled over.

"Hiii Saku." He said, laughing, hugging her back. "So are those your friends?" He pointed to the table with Naruto and everyone else. They were all looking at Shawn with interest, especially Neji and Naruto. _You're gay?_, mouthed Neji to Sakura, but Sakura shook her head and gave him a playful glare. Sasuke was looking at Shawn with complete and utter detest, and Shawn was returning the look. Sakura noticed.

"Yeah, they're my friends… Uhm, how about we walk around for a bit? The food's not gonna be here any time soon." She suggested. WSithout waiting for Shawn's answer, she grabbed his arm and dragged him off.

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Sasuke was sitting in a red leather seat, sipping his Dr. Pepper, listening to everyone talk about Shawn.

"Do you really think that's Elrid?" Ten Ten asked quietly.

"I-it looks like h-him…" Hinata stuttered, and looked worriedly at Sasuke. Naruto sighed and leaned back his seat.

"Man, guys, if that's really Shawn Elrid, then I dunno what to do."

"I wonder where they went," Neji said, and then he looked Naruto straight in the eye, "And are you sure Katsu's not gay?"

"For the last friggin' time, YES!!!"

"He's his ex best friend."

Everyone turned to look at Sasuke, who finally spoke. After a moment of silence, except for the soft voices of patrons and the muffled clinking of dishes from the kitchen, Chouji asked tentatively, afraid that the Uchiha might explode out of anger, "Ex…? What happened?"

"Katsu moved. Katsu has moved twice, I believe. He knew Shawn from Suna, but their lack of communication after Katsu's move affected their relationship."

"Then I believe Katsu will know Sakura."

This time, it was Gaara who spoke. Naruto and Sasuke looked at Gaara in disbelief, and then cast each other worried looks.

"However," Gaara continued, "I have never heard of an Akita Katsu when I was still living in Suna."

"May…maybe Katsu went to a different school than you guys…"

"Suna is very small, Naruto," Gaara replied, "I know about all the schools in that area. But it is very possible that I do not know all of Shawn's friends. I know most of them. He was… very popular in Suna."

"Yeah… Now he's popular here, too. But for some really bad reasons…" Ino added.

"Hn. Just leave her—him. Just leave him alone with Shawn. It's not like Shawn rapes little boys."

"He probably _does_," Naruto told him, "And especially girls, I think. I mean, he's such a player."

"Thanks," Sasuke told the giggling waitress that set down a few bowls of steaming ramen on the table, one of them being his. When she left, he looked at Naruto. "Yeah, but Shawn was his best friend for _three years_, Naruto. I don't think Shawn's just gonna attack her! Him. Attack _him_." He corrected himself quickly.

Everyone nodded in agreement.

"We'll just see how it goes." Neji said.

"How what goes?" asked a voice to their left. Everyone turned their attention away from Neji to see who it was, and there stood Sakura, completely uninjured and looking well. She waved at Shawn, who was standing outside, right next to the window. He waved back, gave Sasuke an icy glare, and walked away.

"N-Nothing, Katsu. Your ramen's here, b-by the way," Hinata stuttered softly, scooting out of the seat with Naruto to let her back into her place.

"Okay. So what evil plan were you guys plotting behind my back just now?"

"A trip to the mall," Came Ino's answer, just as everyone else answered "Nothing."

"Oh, a trip to the mall. Wonderful." Sakura stuck her chopsticks in her ramen and began eating. Everyone else looked at each other, worried.

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

"Ino, that looks absolutely horrid on you. Try these." Ten Ten emerged from behind a clothes rack with an armful of tight-fitting clothes.

"Okay, but _definitely_ not this one," Ino carefully plucked out a red mini blazer with her index finger and thumb, as if she was going to be infested with the Horrible Fashion Disease. "Red clashes with my facial features and everything."

"Right, right." Ten Ten stuffed the clothes into Ino's arms and pushed her into one of the changing rooms.

Sakura sighed. If only she didn't _have_ to pretend to be a boy… But wait. She could pretend to buy clothes for her "girlfriend", no doubt. She stood up from the purple chair and started rummaging through the clothes racks.

"I thought you were a boy," said a familiar voice behind her. Sasuke.

She turned around and glared.

"Well of course I'm a boy, you twit! I'm just buying stuff for um, my _girlfriend_ at home."

"Man, Sakura-chan, I didn't know you have a girlfriend." Said Naruto, who was standing beside Sasuke. "You didn't tell me!"

Sakura thought he was kidding at first, but then she noticed the usual surprised and confused look that came on Naruto's face most of the time.

"Uh, no. As in like… my 'girlfriend'." She made quotation marks in the air with her fingers. "Because, you know, I'm a boy and everything."

Naruto's eyes became wider and wider. "You are? You didn't tell me that either!"

"Naruto, stop being such a dumbass. I'm _pretending_ to be a boy, therefore I must have a reason to shop for girl clothes, so I'm making up a story that will allow me to buy girl clothes. And that story is that I'm just buying them for my girlfriend at home, you _idiot_."

"Oh."

"Yes. Thank you for realizing that after my unnecessary, long explanation." She said, as she picked out a black tee from one of the racks.

"You know," Sasuke said, "I think you should look for swimming trunks instead. For the field trip next week. And also, they're on sale since summer's almost over."

"Oh my God, the field trip! Why didn't I think of that… Okay, I need to get swimming trunks and everything, but there's gonna be a problem. What about the exposure of chest?"

"Just wear a really baggy t-shirt over it. It's not like they can make you take it off."

"Yeah," Sakura nodded. "You're right. But help me look for some." She grabbed Sasuke and dragged him off to the swim suit section.

"Oi! I need some too!" Naruto said after noticing they were gone, running after them.

"Okay," Sakura stopped in front of a rack full of swimming trunks. "Let's start here—ew. Why are they all really baggy and stuff… And none of them are pink… Which is, you know, my favorite color, aside from black."

"Get these." Sasuke handed her a pair of black swimming trunks. She looked at them in mild disgust.

"Yeah, sure, like they'll fit me. You insult me, Sasuke. These are…," Sakura checked the tag, "size _medium_. I'm not that fat!" She shoved them back into his hands.

"Oh, that's right… You need size small." Sasuke yanked off another pair of similar black swimming trunks and tossed them to Sakura. She caught them. Holding it up with her hands, she examined it, looking for any flaws on the black surface. She nodded approvingly.

"Okay, that's good. Thanks, Sasuke… Kun."

And with that, she stalked off to the teenage girl section.

Sasuke stared at her back as she walked away, a small smile forming on his face.

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

**Author's Note: Yes, it's extremelyyyyy short. Sorry about that. But it's sorta a transition chapter. Well, it **_**is**_** a transition chapter…  
to the next chapter, no duh. But the next chapter is going to be awesome! Cuzz that's when…**

**THEY GO ON THE BEACH FIELD TRIP, HELL EFFING YAHHH.**

**Love y'all!**

**KEEP REVIEWING, BIOTCHESSSSS!!!**

**xoxotia :D**


	10. The Call

**The Call**

Sakura stood outside on her bedroom balcony, letting the soft breeze of the night cool her down after her hot bath. Her dark brown bangs moved slightly across her forehead, swaying with the wind. She stared at the full moon, its warm glow casting shadows across the lawn below her. It was Wednesday—two days before the field trip, and she had no homework left to do.

She was content.

The mood was ruined when her butt started vibrating. She reached into the back pocket of her black pajama pants and pulled out her cell phone, flipping it open.

"Hello?"

"Hey."

"Hi Shawn."

"I… was thinking about what we talked about on Saturday. You know, when we walked around during your lunch time at Ichiraku's?"

"Oh. Yeah, whaddyou think?"

"I'll do it."

Sakura smiled, and then closed her eyes. She was so happy…

"Alright then. I'll see you around."

"Bye."

"Bye."

She closed her cell phone and placed it onto the wrought iron table a few feet behind her.

And then she sunk into the balcony's chair, resting her head in her arms, thinking a million thoughts.

**00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000**

**Author's Note: No, this is not a whole chapter. Gosh, peoples. Calm down. The tenth chapter's coming up tomorrow or the day after. Most likely tomorrow. **

**So I'll just keep writing. I've gotten the tenth chapter half way done already. **

**xoxotia**


	11. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: Naruto I own not.**

**OH MY GAWD I'M REALLY SORRY I DIDN'T UPDATE A FEW DAYS AGO LIKE I SAID I WOULD.**

**I have a REALLY REALLY GOOD REASON:**

**Maple Story**

**:D**

**Lol, if you have it, add me. Username: x3TiaBear, World: Bellocan, so yeah.**

**Right. Onto the chappy.**

**Chapter TEN**

"Okay, everyone, we're here! Kakashi's advisory, please stand up, get your luggage, and follow Mr. Kakashi to your cabins!" Called out Mrs. Kurenai. A few cheers were heard in the back of the bus in response to her message.

Sakura scooted out of her seat and followed her advisory out of the charter bus to get her luggage. Hopefully her luggage wasn't too girly compared to the others. Just a plain black piece of luggage… She hoisted it out of the bottom of the bus and dragged it to her place in line. When they arrived at the beach, she was way too tired to care much. Too tired to notice a familiar black mini van pass by the charter bus. She was also very sore from sitting down for three hours straight and all she wanted to do was to lie down and rest…

"Oi! Katsu-chann, look at that!" Naruto pointed to a large cluster of trees surrounding the beach. There was a rocky hill behind the woods. "I heard that we're gonna have fun night and we're gonna have to go in there or something…"

Sakura glanced up, mumbled something incoherent, and kept walking. The sun was burning hot and Sakura wished that she had not chosen to wear a black t-shirt and black jeans. Finally, they reached cabins 10 and 11.

"Alright, everyone," Kakashi yelled, so everyone could hear him. "We're gonna split into two groups, okay? One group will be in cabin 10 and the other one will be in cabin 11. So cabin 10 will be: Katsu, Naruto, Chouji, Gaara, and Neji. Cabin 11 will be: Shen, Sasuke, Shikamaru, Kiba, and Shino. Dinner is in two hours at 6:30 at the cafeteria in the large cabin next to the woods. Well, have fun everyone!" He waved at them and then trudged through the sand to the teacher cabins.

Everyone departed to their cabins. Sakura stumbled inside Cabin 10 with her luggage, mumbling about looking for a place to dump all her stuff. Everyone else cried out in joy. When Sakura looked up after brushing off some sand on her jeans, she could see why everyone was amazed.

The two story cabin was huge. They were all standing on a glossy, wooden floor that looked perfect and new. There was a huge space in front of them—two couches on a red, soft-looking rug surrounding a circular glass coffee table. A large T.V. was placed against the wall, in front of the couches. There were three rooms on the first floor, and three rooms upstairs, as far as they could tell. The whole main room was illuminated by the hot afternoon sun shining through the tall windows, but they couldn't feel the heat—the cabin was air conditioned. After taking in the awesomeness of the whole cabin, they decided to take off their shoes since the floor was clean and such. They found a closet right next to them, and it had a bunch of hangers and a small shoe rack in the corner.

Sakura grabbed her stuff and then marched through the first door she saw. "This room's mine!" She yelled, dragging her stuff into the room. It turned out to be a simple bedroom—there was a wooden work desk in the top left corner of the room, a small, comfortable looking bed with navy blue comforters was placed against the right wall, and drawers at the foot of the bed. She dumped her stuff next to the work desk and proceeded to open the two windows, because it was way too quiet. The sound of the call of seagulls and people playing and laughing on the beach drifted into her room. After she unpacked all her stuff and put them into the drawers (which were, unsurprisingly very clean), she stuffed all her female products into a plastic bag and buried it under all her guy clothes in the drawer.

"Katsu-chan!! This place is so awesome!" Naruto said as he walked into her bedroom. "The T.V. in the main room place actually works and all the bathrooms are soo clean and this place has _two_ floors, and it's—"

"Naruto. Please learn to not come into my room at random times, lest I be changing or doing other things that you are not permitted by me to see."

"Eh?" He scratched his head, confused.

"…Nevermind." Sakura sighed, and then turned around to admire her organized, neat bedroom.

"Whatever, c'mon Katsu-chan, let's go swim!!"

"Naruto, are you stupid?"

"Uh, no?"

"I can't swim because I, um…" She trailed off when her three other cabin mates stepped into her room. Neji smirked at her.

"Well, Katsu? You can't swim 'cause… what, you're scared?"

"No!" Sakura yelled, throwing her hands in the air. "Of course I can swim and I'm not scared! In fact I'm going swimming right now!"

"Hm," said Neji, "We'll meet you at the beach in 5 minutes, then."

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Donned with a grey t-shirt and her black swimming trunks that Sasuke picked out for her, Sakura ran out of Cabin 10 to the beach, knowing that she would regret swimming with so many people around. One little slip of her really loose t-shirt in the water would probably give everything away. But she wasn't scared of the water at all—she's show that stuck up bastard who was better.

And she regretted her decision even more when she saw the tons and tons of fangirls in skimpy bikinis out on the beach, most of them surrounding a topless Sasuke. A topless Sasuke—Sakura couldn't help but notice that he had an extremely nice body. But, of course, Sakura wasn't going to think about that, especially since so many people were there.

"Katsu-kun! Katsu-kun!" called a girl behind her. Sakura instantly recognized the voice as one girl from the Katsu fanclub… Not wanting to be mean, Sakura turned around and gave her a weak smile. A bunch of her other fangirls were there as well.

"Katsu-kuuun, take off your shirt! It's sooo hot out here, isn't it?" one girl avidly suggested. They all nodded in agreement. Not knowing what to do, Sakura just stood there, looking for some sign that God would help her soon or something.

Nope. Nothing.

Suddenly, she felt someone grab her hand and drag her toward the water. Stumbling behind her savior, she looked up.

It was Sasuke.

"Do you realize that I am perfectly capable of walking by myself?" She asked politely. He didn't let go. Instead, he said, "Do you realize that you were really stupid to come out here? What, do you want to swim or something or get raped by girls?"

"How can you get raped by girls…?" She mumbled. He didn't answer. "So, uhm, are we going swimming now?"

Sasuke looked at her like she was retarded, and then nodded. He let go of her hand when they were ankle-deep in the water. The smell of the ocean was salty, but nice. She could feel the water drift forward and then backward on the sand, cooling off her burning legs and feet. Sakura looked up at Sasuke's usually emotionless face… Wait… Was he smiling?

And then he pushed her in.

"Fuck!" She shouted as she fell, and she reached out to grab anything, something to keep her up—She grabbed Sasuke's wrist and pulled… And he came down with her into the shallow water, yelling out in surprise. They fell in with a loud splash. She flailed about, her arms and legs punching and kicking water into the air. Sasuke was still on her.

"Mmmmphh… Sasuke, get off, you're fucking drowning me." She helped him get off by pushing him off of her. She immediately stood up, removing clumps of wet sand from her hair and spitting salt water filled saliva into the sand.

"Peh. Gross. That was gross. And that was mean. Never ever ever do that again even though it's funny to push people randomly into water."

"…Hn."

"Whatever. Just DO NOT do it again, 'cause you need to learn some manners."

"…Hn." Sasuke waded deeper into the water. Sakura waded in after him.

"Really, Sasuke, when are you gonna learn some new words?"

"…Aa."

"Sasuke."

"…"

"Sasuke-kuuun." Sakura suddenly said in a sing-song voice. She enjoyed the fact that he twitched when she added that dreaded suffix to his name.

"…"

"Saaasuke-kuuuun."

"…What."

"Oh my God, you learned a new word." She smiled sweetly at him.

"…"

"Oi! Oi Sakura! I meant Katsu!" Yelled Naruto, who was standing on the hot burning sand, setting up a volleyball net. "Let's all play some beach volleyball! Boys against girls!" Many other girls stood around him, squealing in delight.

"Okay, Naruto! Let's go, Sasuke." Sakura didn't wait for him to respond and swam back to shore. Sasuke was right behind her.

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Sakura dumped a slab of lasagna, a small pile of mashed potatoes, and a piece of garlic bread onto her tray. Sliding her tray to the left, she grabbed a glass cup from the cup tray and filled it with Dr. Pepper. She took her tray and walked through the white swinging doors from the quiet cafeteria kitchen into the noisy dining hall. She made her way through the wooden dining tables to the table with Sasuke and Naruto and all her other guy friends.

"Hey guys." Sakura said as she set her tray down next to Naruto.

"Katsu-chan! Hey! I didn't know you could play volleyball so well."

"Yeah, Katsu. It's like you trained or something." Shikamaru said.

"Nooo, of course I didn't," She replied quickly. "Why would I ever want to practice volleyball?"

"Cause you're gay?" Suggested Neji.

"I am _not_ gay!" She snapped back as she reached over to the silverware holder to get a fork and knife. "God."

"Only girls say "God". So you must be gay."

Sakura sighed. "Yeah, sure, whatever. Just shut up." She jabbed her fork into her lasagna.

They ate and talked about how excited they were about the trip. And then Naruto mentioned the woods to them.

"They say that the woods are really scary, especially at night."

"All woods are scary at night, dumbass." Sasuke said.

"Oeii, shut up, teme. Anyway, they're gonna have a fun night thing there and I bet we're gonna have to go in there and stuff—"

"May I have your attention please?" Called out Ms. Tsunade, who was standing at the front of the dining hall with a microphone in her hand. "Okay. This is very important. We just received the news that earlier today, a killer broke out of jail. Hush, every, please, remain seated and calm down," She raised her hand to silence the murmurs that broke out among the students. "We advise everyone to please stay in your cabins after seven thirty, and no later than that! We do not want to lose a student. The jail the killer broke out of is a very near the beach, so we will need to take as many precautions as we can. And I want everyone to travel in groups of at least three—we cannot allow _anyone_ to wander alone outside."

Sakura sent everyone at her table a worried glance.

"Okay, well… It's 7:10 right now, and you should be almost finished with dinner. So please hurry and head back to your cabins. Lights out at ten." Tsunade handed the microphone to Kakashi, who took it away.

Almost everyone in the dining hall stood up at once to put their trays away. There was fear in the air as everyone walked outside, meeting the crisp cool air. The sun was setting, casting a orange purplish glow on the clouds. Sakura stayed with her cabin mates, and they promised each other to be travel buddies for the rest of the trip—until the killer was caught.

"Naruto, this is kinda scary. Oh, my God, if I don't come back alive, my mom's gonna bitch. But I dunno who she's gonna bitch at. She's probably gonna go through my AIM chat logs and find my chat with you and she's gonna hunt you down and bitch at you and then kill you."

"Uh, Sakura-chan, calm down…" He said in a hushed whisper.

"I'm just really scared…"

They finally reached their cabin after an agitating three minutes of walking outside. The sun was almost gone—there were still bright beams of light fading away into the ocean.

They all stayed in the main room, playing cards and sipping mugs of hot cocoa. They had found packs of them in the small kitchen next to the main room. Then, near nine thirty, they decided to follow the rules this time and get ready for bed. Once they finished cleaning up in the bathrooms and getting dressed in their pajamas, they all met in the main room once more to talk about what might happen in the next few days. At nine fifty five, there was a knock on their door…

Everyone paused.

"Guys? It's Kakashi. Are you all ready for bed?"

"Yes." They half-shouted back, making sure he could hear them.

"Good!" They heard him walk away. Sakura stood up from the couch.

"Alright, g'night, guys. See you tomorrow…hopefully."

"Don't be so pessimistic." Neji said. They gave each other weak smiles and departed to their bedrooms.

Sakura shut her door quietly and climbed into bed. Her room was cool and her bed was really comfortable. She seemed so sleepy, but she couldn't fall asleep. Her mind was on the killer. What if he really came to the beach? Did he know there were two grades full of students sleeping in cabins on the beach, unaware of his existence? Her eyelids drooped after a few minutes, and she dozed off.

_Thump._

Sakura drowsily opened her eyes. What was that? She looked at her clock.

_11:03… _the red numbers glowed brightly in the dark.

She could sense that there was another presence in her room. She closed her eyes, her breath hitched in her throat. Her heart beat was faster and louder then ever. It was the only sound in the room she could hear other than the shuffling of the feet of the killer. Could he or she hear her heart? Or would they stop it from beating…

_Don't move… Don't move… Don't move… Don't breath… Don't breath… _Sakura repeated over and over in her head. The killer was in her room? How?

Oh yeah. Fuck. She left the windows open.

She almost hit herself on the head because of her stupidity, but decided not to.

_Take as many precautions as you can,_ Ms. Tsunade had told them, and she forgot to fucking close her windows.

The killer walked around her room. Did he have a knife? She didn't know. She didn't want to know. Suddenly, she felt like screaming. Yes, to warn her cabin mates that there was a killer in their cabin. That seemed like a good idea.

She couldn't handle it anymore and she opened her eyes.

After a few seconds, she let her breath out, relieved.

She wanted to scream, but with glee and happiness and jubilee and all other sorts of synonyms of happy.

Because icy blue eyes stared down at her.

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

**Author's Note: This was probably THE most intense chapter I've ever written.**

**It's not that intense…**

**But still. And really sorry about the delay. Maple Story… Yeah, whatever. I think I liked this chapter the most, actually. I had a lot of fun writing it.**

'**kay—leave a review and I'll love you some more. :D**

**xoxotia**


	12. Their Turn To Talk

Sakura: Alright peoples, I'm here to fill in for Tia because, um, she kinda died. So I'm really here to tell you that her story is finished, but it's all on paper and she needs to type it in—which she will, I think. Once we can get her back to life, that is.

Sasuke: Sakura! I think I found a phoenix feather for a phoenix down for Tia! –holds up big yellow feather-

Sakura: What the fawk!!! That's a chocobo feather you dumbass!

Sasuke: Oh shit. –runs away-

Insane Chocobo: -runs after Sasuke-

Sakura: Right… Well anyway, Tia will be back soon, I hope.

Naruto: Yeah! See, the story's finished. It's all right here! –waves pages maniacally in the air-

Sakura: -snatches pages away- Naruto, they're not supposed to see it yet!

Naruto: Oh.

Shawn: So we'll see you guys soon in the next chap—

Sakura: -kicks Shawn off page- NO OC'S ALLOWED, ASSWIPE!!!

Shawn: -cries in little corner of word document-

Sakura: As I was saying, we'll see you guys soon in the next chapter, which is probably going to be about 3000+ words. Which is a lot, compared to the other chapters. So, uh… I guess this is goodbye for now?

Naruto: BYEEEE!!!!

Sakura: --


	13. Out of Hiatus

Sakura: Oh my God.

Sasuke: YES, I HAVE IT!

Sakura: Oh my God.

Sasuke: YES!!!

Sakura: Oh my God, give that to me.

Sasuke: -gives her glass full of glowing red liquid-

Sakura: Oh my God. Wait, hold it for a sec. –hands it back-

Naruto: Whoa, you made it o.o

Sasuke: YEP!

Sakura: -comes back dragging limp body across the room-

Sasuke: Umm, be careful with Tia's dead body.

Sakura: Okay, hand that glass to me.

Sasuke: -hands it over- Be careful, don't uhm, spill it. o.O

Sakura: -forces it down Tia's throat-

Sasuke: WTFAWK!!

Naruto: WTFAWK!!

Naruto: Oh.

Naruto: Uhm, she's alive.

Sasuke: YES!!!

Sakura: -stands back-

Tia: …urgh…

Sakura: HEY.

Tia: WTFAWK!!!1ONEONEONETWO!!! Where am I?!

Naruto: Sasuke's mansion.

Tia: OMFG! How did I end up here?! IS MY BRA STILL ON?!

Sakura&Sasuke: O.O

Tia: Right, right. WTFAWK!!!! How are you guys alive?! Like, real life life live.

Sakura: Uh, whatever. What matters it that you're alive and you can FINISH WRITING CHAPTER THIRTEEN! –throws pages at Tia-

Tia: Nuuuu, that's why I killed myself!

Sasuke: -slaps Tia-

Tia: Eh?

Sasuke: NO yo MUDDAFUGGA go WRITE yoh FANFIC now!

Naruto: BELIEVE IT! Bitch!

Tia: Whatever, this is getting fugged.

Sakura: -grabs Tia's arm and pushed her toward computer- HERE.

Tia: Pfft.

Sasuke: KATUN, GOK—

Tia: FINE, I'LL TYPE IT, DAMMIT!

Tia: Gawd.

Tia: I'm starting to type. –presses a key-

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

LOL, okay so I'm out of hiatus now. Be thankful. Gawd. -.-


	14. OMG FUNNY NARUTO SHIT

**Author's Note&Disclaimer: I DON'T OWN NARUTO. ROFL I WROTE THIS THE OTHER DAY AND MY FRIENDS AND I COULDN'T STOP LAUGHING AT IT. Yeah, so the eleventh chapter is almost half way done. To give you an idea on how long it is, it's twelve pages right now (Times New Roman, font size 12). Anyhow, these are all different scenes and shit, lol XDDD. Also, it's to keep you occupied... ENJOY, BETCHES!!!!!**

Naruto woke up, hearing some weird sounds coming from the room next to his—was that Sakura's room? He jumped off of his bed and crept out of his bedroom as quietly as he could, into the main room, and in front of Sakura's bedroom.

The weird noises were still coming.

"Sniff," He sniffed, and opened the door.

And there laid two people on her bed, doing some weird twister game.

"Oh my God," Naruto gasped, catching their attention. "Oh my God."

"Naruto?!" Sakura shrieked.

"Oh my God, oh my God, you guys are playing twister and you didn't tell me!"

"Uhm," another voice came from under the covers. "Right, Sakura, left foot on red."

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Sasuke was ready. He made sure he had packed an extra pack of kunai's and he was full of chakra, ready for anything.

He could take on anyone.

So he leaped off the tree and landed quietly on the grass, right outside of code 4 Akatsuki head quarters, and dashed through one of the back doors.

It was dark. Very dark.

He stumbled in, but he knew he wasn't alone. He could hear someone talking—or was it shouting?—from one of the rooms. And he felt his aura, his dark strong aura. It was him. Sasuke slowly approached the room that it was coming from. The aura became stronger and stronger with each step he took.

The door was wooden.

"Itachi," Sasuke muttered under his breath. This was his room, he knew it.

It smelled like cheese.

And then he kicked open the door.

"Itachi! I'm here to kill you, you scheming filthy bastard!" He yelled, stepping into the dark room, with only a large bed and a small wooden wardrobe. There was a shuffling under the bed.

"…Uh, I'm kinda busy right now." Itachi's voice was slightly muffled from being under the blankets.

"You killed the whole clan! I've come to kill you!"

"I'm really busy right now, actually."

"I've come to kill you!"

"You've made that pretty clear, but, uhm, I'm kinda busy."

"Then you'll just have to finish later!" Sasuke yelled and charged toward the bed, ready to strike with his gleaming kunai.

The blankets were pulled down half enough to see…

Two naked people.

"Uahhwha?" Sasuke froze and stiffened. "Oh my God."

Sakura looked at him, frozen as well.

"Oh my God," Sasuke said again. "Oh my God."

Itachi looked at Sasuke with his exit sign red eyes.

"Oh my God," Sasuke said again. "You… You're playing twister and you didn't even invited me?!"

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

**Yahoo!** Search Engine:

_**Rate Orochimaru's Sex!**_

**_Kabuto _said:**  
1 out of 5, I give him a 7.

**_Sakura_ said:**  
What in the fcking hell! O.o  
dude, lyke, is that even possible?!

**_Sasuke_ said:**  
he's soo mean, someone save me, he wants to play twister with me all the time and i don't want to and then he makes me watch him do that weird snake jutsu on his pee nee so it makes it all snakey and wigglee!

_**Naruto**_ **said:**  
hes prety gud i thnk. wuts sex?


	15. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. D:**

**Yeah, so I'm out of hiatus. Gawd -.-**

**BTW!!!! Updates will be sloowwww, because school has started. BLEHHGHHHGHH. Like, it took me a whole two weeks or something to write this stupid long chapter. STUPID REALLY LONG CHAPTER!!!! STUPID!!!!!!!!!!!!! **

**But be glad it's posted now, after a hiatus and a long time to write this.**

**Right, just telling you.**

**Chapter Eleven**

"Shawn!" Sakura said happily, throwing her arms around his skinny torso. He chuckled.

"Hey Saku. Sorry if I woke you up."

"Woke me up? I thought you were the killer!" She laughed and hugged him harder.

"The killer?" He had a puzzled expression on his face. "What killer?"

"You haven't heard yet?" Sakura asked. "They said some guy broke out of a jail near this beach, so we have to be really careful about safety and stuff."

"What? A killer? Broke out of jail? So that means he could be wandering around this beach _right now_?"

"Uh, yeah?"

"Oh…" Shawn combed back his midnight black hair from his eyes with his fingers. "Wow, shit. Then I think I can't stay."

"But why? Over the phone you said you would come and keep me company so I wouldn't die from being friendless for four days."

"You have uh, Naruto. And I guess Sasuke."

"So that means you're really going home?"

"Yeah, well, there's another thing. My parents don't know I'm here and I took their car, so I have to go home anyway. Like, I can't stay the whole time that you're here, 'cause I have school."

"…Fine." Sakura let go of him and leaned against her bed post. "Fine."

She looked up at him so she could see what his response would be, but he wasn't looking at her. He was staring alarmed at the floor.

"What is it?" She followed his gaze to the floor and gasped. The moonlight was shining through her window, leaving a rectangular area of light on her wooden floor. But there was a human shaped shadow…

So, wow, fuck. She left the windows open again.

Sakura slowly looked up and saw a pale faced man. A dark shadow covered his eyes because of the black bangs hanging over them. Suddenly, he shook the bangs out of his eyes and she was staring straight at Sasuke's angry face.

"What the fuck are you guys doing?" He said, glaring at Shawn. Shawn glared back with the equal amount of acridness.

"Hi… Sasuke-kun." Sakura said.

"Hi," he muttered back, his eyes still fixed on Shawn. "Want to answer my question?"

"We were talking." Shawn said. Sakura nodded.

"And why is he even here?!"

"I invited him." Sakura said quickly, avoiding his eyes, which were now fixated on her. She stared down at her navy blue comforter. "Well, I, uh, thought it'd be more fun?"

"Fun?" Sasuke spat.

"Hey, you know what?" Shawn stood up from the bed. "I'm gonna leave."

"No!" Sakura reached out for his arm, but he was already at her window, jumping out and purposely trying to land on Sasuke. Of course, he missed and landed softly on the sand. He gave Sasuke one last look, muttered some obscene word under his breath, and walked away toward the woods.

Sakura furiously slid out of bed and got up right next to the window, so she was face-to-face with Sasuke.

"Yes?" He asked, the corner of his lips turning upward.

Whatta bitch.

"No." She said, and slammed the window down, locking it. Then she turned away from his slightly surprised face and slid back into bed and waited for the adrenaline to die away so she could finally sleep.

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

"…and so the shifting of the tectonic plates of the earth's surface…"

Sakura stood ankle-deep in the ocean water, away from the burning hot sand from the burning hot sun. Her grey t-shirt clung to her sweaty back and her bangs were matted to her wet forehead. She couldn't concentrate on Kakashi's boring lecture and plus, the extra body heat from the girls cluttered around her made her want to faint from being overheated. But she was sure Sasuke was suffering more and that made it all the better.

Just a bit, though.

She rubbed her forehead with the back of her hand, and her hand came away with a shit load of drippy sweat. Why did today have to be so hot… ? Suddenly, she heard a grinding noise behind her and being easily distracted, she turned around to be blinded by the harsh glare of the sun's reflection off the black Hummer. Shawn's Hummer. She waved, but he didn't see. A few seconds later, he was gone far off into the distance, a tiny black speck.

Stupid Sasuke, that stupid bitch with his stupid arrogant personality.

She looked at Sasuke. He was looking at her, but he looked away. Then the heat decreased by a great amount, maybe because the huge crowd of students had dispersed and everyone was walking off to their cabins having been dismissed. She sluggishly began to walk back to Cabin 10.

"Hey, hey, KATSU-CHANNN!" yelled Naruto, who was two feet away from Sakura. She rolled her eyes.

"Hi Naruto."

"So what did you and Shawn do last night???"

"S-Shawn? Do _what_? Wait, _what?!?!_ Do what? Who told you—" Sakura paused before saying, "…Sasuke?"

"Believe it, yeah!" He nodded vigorously. "Sasuke told me and he said you guys were doing stuff and he didn't know what and yeah."

"He sure as hell knew what we were doing and we were _talking!_ And why'd he tell you anyway?!" Sakura walked faster, further pissed off at Sasuke.

"Well, I don't know, maybe—"

"Oh, by the way, did you take any notes on the lecture?" she said, hoping to change the subject. If they kept talking about that, then she'd probably explode from the anger. Naruto, who was as close as to being ADD as anyone could get, started to talk about how he didn't understand a thing about what Kakashi talked about. Soon, they reached Cabin 10 and 11 and they departed to their separate cabins. She was met by a twenty degree drop in the temperature when she walked in, heading to her bedroom, glad that they had AC. She quietly locked her room, but she was sure no one was here— her cabin-mates had said that they'd be at the cafeteria for a small afternoon snack after the lecture. She wanted some time alone.

First, to make her anger subside, she'd have to do something distracting. Sakura threw off her grey sweat soaked t-shirt and flung it in her "dirty clothes" bag. She was sure she didn't want to walk around in _that_ anymore. Next, she untied the medical bandages from her chest and threw them in the same bag as she did with her grey shirt. Then, after taking off her swimming trunks and wiping herself dry with a small towel, she rummaged through her drawers to find a bra, panties, and something girly to wear. For just once, she'd like to dress like a girl…

She pulled out a small black, red, and white plaid skirt. Skirt. She didn't wear skirts. But if she was gonna dress like a girl just this once, she'd go all the way. And then she grabbed a soft, white spaghetti-strap tank top and pulled it on. Sakura combed through her tangled brown hair, which was now much longer then when she first cut it—it was almost to the nape of her neck.

She almost laughed when she brushed her somewhat long bangs to the side over her left ear and slid a bunny hair clip in her hair to keep it there. Not knowing whether she looked okay, she unlocked the door and stepped out.

And then she stopped dead in her tracks.

"Sa…Sasuke?" She said feebly, a blush making its way to her cheeks. There he was, lounging on one of the leather sofas, staring at her with his black eyes. And then he smiled.

"So… Is this what girl Katsu looks like?"

"Uh, yeah. Yeah that's me. Sakura. Katsu. Whatever."

"You certainly look very different. I could barely recognize you."

"I don't look different that much, and well…well I just happened to, uh, be a girl, so sometimes I want to _dress_ like a girl. Does that make any sense to you?" she said, hoping that she didn't look like a ridiculous prep, in her skirt and tank top. And bunny hair clip.

"Ah." He said, and nothing more. He reached for his glass of water on the glass coffee table and took a small sip.

"Yeah." She reached behind her and closed her bedroom door, before she proceeded to walk across the room and sit next to him on the couch. She was going to question him about his little talk about Naruto and she was going to do it calmly, whether she was extremely angry or not. "So why'd you tell Naruto?"

He looked at her with his coal black eyes. "Tell him what?"

"You know, about him. Shawn."

"What about him?"

"…" Sakura was beginning to get annoyed. "About him being here, of course."

He stared at her some more. "Him. He was here, he shouldn't have been here."

"Uh, yeah, I know, so why did you tell _other_ people?" her annoyance was beginning to show in her voice.

"Who?"

"People like Naruto."

"Oh, Naruto. I told him that Shawn was here because he shouldn't have been here, and Naruto's my friend. Friends tend to tell each other things."

Sakura eyed him for a few seconds. "So you told Naruto all these things because he's your friend and Shawn wasn't supposed to be here. And because you want to get him in trouble, right? Is that it?"

Sasuke didn't respond.

"Gawd, you're so unbelievable sometimes, you know that? Shawn could get into some serious trouble if they found out he was camping in the woods when a school had rented the whole area."

"You don't know what Shawn is."

Sakura gawked at him. "Are you serious?! What the fuck, Uchiha. Shawn is a _guy_ that is my _best friend_. I know who he is. I think I'd know him better than you do."

"He's a fucking—"

"_Shut up_." She hissed, her eyes narrowing. She knew she was going to start yelling pretty soon, she could feel it coming. So she stood up from the couch and walked over to the door, getting away before she attracted any attention from people outside the cabin. She just wanted to leave Sasuke, even if it meant having to walk out in the open in preppy girl clothes.

"Wait—"

She opened the door, stepped outside, and slammed it closed.

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Sasuke watched as the cabin door slam loudly. He sighed and laid back into the couch, enjoying the feel of cold leather against his neck. A minute later, he heard the fall of footsteps coming down the stairs. He looked up and saw Neji standing at the foot of the stairs, his hand just leaving the rail.

"Hi. Glad you came."

"Tch, whatever. I have to go now." Sasuke sat up.

"Hold on, I told you to come here because I needed to tell you something really important."

"It can wait, right?"

"Why're you in such a hurry? Because of your fight with Sakura?"

"No, it's not—" Sasuke broke off and stared, appalled at Neji. "What did you say?"

"I know. Katsu's a girl."

"But…" Sasuke quickly raked through his brain for anything in his and Sakura's argument that revealed anything about her being a girl. He remembered…

"No, I've known since yesterday or maybe longer than that."

"Since yesterday?"

"Yep. Wanna know how?"

"…How?" Sasuke watched Neji sit on the cough across from him.

"I have synesthesia."

"Synesthesia?" Sasuke asked. He'd never heard of that before.

"Yes, I'm not surprised you don't know what that is. It's really rare for someone to have it, but in my case, the type of synesthesia I have is rare anyway. It's not a disease. I'd say it's more of an ability…" Neji pointed to his pearly white eyes. "I can see things others can't. I can see chemicals and people's auras and feelings in colors. Your aura is dark blue and you're feeling frustrated."

"But how? How do you know? How do you get synesthesia?"

"You're born with it. The reason for synesthesia is because the senses in your brain are fused together. So let's say my taste and vision sense were fused together. If I ate eggs, then I'd see blue dots with green spirals bouncing around in front of me. It's different for each type of food."

Sasuke was speechless.

"People can have different senses fused together and mine is special. Anyway, Sakura's aura is different than any other guy I've ever met. She has a girl's aura. It's pink. I noticed when she first introduced herself in advisory, but I dismissed it as just weird. But then, when she came to your house for the sleepover, I could tell something strange was happening to her. She was in great pain most of the time and she felt cranky, although she didn't show it… And then there were so many other times that proved my hypothesis right."

"Like what?"

"Like when Naruto randomly calls her Sakura, which is undoubtedly a girl's name. And then when she hugs people a lot… and when she wears a shirt all the time on the beach. I mean, I've never seen her exposing her_ chest_. Also, her speech is really weird for a guy. "

"Oh." Sasuke said. "So is that why your eyes are white and you have no pupils, which is very scary for a person?"

"No, that just runs in my family." Neji said.

"Oh… Well, then, why haven't you told anyone about this…ability of yours?"

"Special reasons. Just though I'd tell you because I know you can keep a secret, just like you're keeping Sakura's secret."

"Oh."

"If I told anyone else, then, you know… Like if I told Naruto."

Sasuke laughed. "So, am I dismissed now?"

Neji smiled. "Yeah. Have fun with whatever you're going to do…"

"Right." Sasuke stood up, waved goodbye, and walked out of the cabin.

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Sakura walked around in all her might, hoping that she wouldn't be noticed by anyone. Pfft, she was the only one not wearing a bikini; of _course _she would be noticed. But she kept walking on the sandy beach, angry at Sasuke. She was _not_ going to go back into the cabin after her oh-so-dramatic leave, although she was sure Sasuke had already left anyway. But what she hadn't figured out yet was why Sasuke would be at their cabin.

"Heeey."

Startled, Sakura turned around, becoming face to face with none other than Sai.

"Whoa," Sai said, surprised. He looked at her face, squinting. "Oh, sorry, you looked like a… _friend_ of mine for a second."

"Oh, okay." she said. He smirked that stupid smirk of his and leaned forward. He looked so much remarkably like Sasuke.

"Yeah. My name's Sai. What about you?"

"Uh." she quickly tried to think up of a name that she could use… "Masami."

"Masami, huh? Well whatcha up to?"

"Uhm, I'm just walking around on the beach and stuff. Nothing important." she replied quickly, hoping that her answer would make him uninterested and bored with her.

"Good. So wanna get a drink with me?"

Turning him down would be rude, but still… This was Sai. But she couldn't just turn him down—he'd think she was a bitch or something.

"Sure."

And then he smiled a triumphant smile and walked over to the small shack on the beach where they sold drinks, expecting her to follow. So she did. They ended up sitting on two of the stools in the drink shack, Sai sipping a cold beer and Sakura sipping a glass of Dr. Pepper, despite Sai's protests. _Pshh, of course,_ she thought, _he wants me to get drunk off beer or something_.

"So what're you doing up here? You don't go to North Konoha Academy, do you?"

"Uhmm, no, I'm not from around here. Me and my… boyfriend came up here to hang out." Sakura said, hoping that he didn't recognize her. Well, he didn't know her face _that_ well. And the fact that he now knew that she had a boyfriend?

"Oh, really." Sai smirked. Then he frowned a bit. "Wait, on a week day?"

"Uh, yeah, 'cause it's, uh, fall break for us." She said in more of a questioning tone then a statement. But he didn't notice. And he didn't seem to care that she did have a boyfriend.

"Oh, cool. You must go to a public school. We're here on a field trip."

"Mmmhmm," Sakura drank some more of her Dr. Pepper. "That's nice. Which school?"

"West Konoha Academy. Hey, by the way, are you staying in a hotel?"

A hotel. A hotel, of course. Well, where else would she be staying? **Say no, Sakura. Say no. He might follow you to the hotel and do shit with you or whatever.**_ What the fuck! Are you Inner Sakura? _**Duh. **_Well I certainly haven't heard from you in a long time. _**Whatever, just say no already!**

"No, I'm not. I'm staying at my… Grandma's house."

"Oh." Sai looked at his drink disappointedly. "So where're you from?"

"S-Suna." Sakura blurted out the first place that came to mind.

"Suna? Isn't that where…" he trailed off. But then he asked her another question. "Do you know some kid named Shawn Elrid?"

_What!? How does he know Shawn!? _**Well, maybe because he was really "popular" in Suna.**

"No, I don't think so."

Sai's jaw dropped. "How long've you been living in Suna?"

"Only about a year."

"Ooh, then you don't know him. Okay."

"What's so special about him anyway?" Sakura asked, curious as to why everyone knew Shawn's name. Even Sasuke knew… and apparently, they already knew each other before Sakura met Shawn again, judging by the way Sasuke handled himself whenever he was around Shawn. Same thing with Shawn—there seemed to be something between them.

"He's… Well, you know. He's sort of…" Sai looked away, off into the distance.

"Sort of _what_?"

"Nothing. Nothing you need to know."

"Oh." Sakura smiled. She didn't want Sai to be suspicious of her questions, so she stopped. She'd find out later, if she could.

"Hey, wanna see something cool?" He asked suddenly. She had no idea what he would do, but he got her curious.

"Sure." She gulped down the rest of her Dr. Pepper and slid off the stool, just as Sai did. She followed him across the beach and toward the woods.

"So, what's Suna like?"

"It's… good." Sakura tried to keep her answers as vague as possible.

"Cool." They were already in the woods, going deeper and deeper, but staying close to the trail. A few minutes later, he suddenly stopped, and Sakura bumped into him.

"What?" She asked, her voice breaking the silence.

"Hmm," Sai turned around, smirking. Then he pushed her roughly into a tree close behind her and caged her there with his arms.

"What the fuck…" She seemed to be losing her voice. All she could do was look at his face. So much like Sasuke's face.

"You are _so_ easy." He said and bent forward to kiss her.

**Knee him. NOW. **_You're back!_ **No shit! Knee him like you did last time! **_I knew that he would trick me, stupid Sai, stupid Sai._

"Stop."

Sai jerked backward, looking around frantically, muttering curses under his breath, and the whole time Sakura was still staring, frozen, at that face so much like Sasuke's.

"Let her go."

And that voice, so much like Sasuke's. Sai stepped back, freeing her, but still looking around.

"Now go back."

"And if I don't?" Sai called out, still looking around, uncertain where the voice was coming from.

"Tsunade will know."

"Shit," Sai stepped back. "Well, see you later… Masami."

He ran as fast as he could, disappearing through the trees.

And then she heard a rustling in the bushes. Out came Sasuke.

"Sasuke!" Sakura bit her lip, a bit embarrassed about what happened during their last encounter. But then she reminded herself that she was supposed to be mad at him. "How did you find me?"

He stood there with an enraged expression on his face, possible angry at her? No, _she_ was supposed to be angry at _him_.

"I… saw you guys and I know what Sai is like. So I watched you guys go into the woods and I followed."

"Oh."

"Let's head back, I think another lecture is going to be soon." Sasuke said in a calm voice. He still looked angry.

"Ugh," Sakura groaned as she followed him through the woods. "Another lecture."

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

So she decided to let it go that one time, since he had saved her from getting raped or something by Sai. So what? She decided she'd stay angry at him starting…now.

She set her tray down loudly onto the wooden table, already occupied with a bunch of her friends.

"—and Hinata sounded like she was gonna faint or something, because, you know, she couldn't speak and so then I checked if it was a fever."

"Dobe, she likes you."

Sakura stared at Sasuke, but he was looking at Naruto with a bored look on his face. Then she looked at his tray, suddenly appalled. There were so many…tomatoes on his plate.

"EHH?!"

"Duh," Shikamaru said. "Can't you tell? She always forgets how to form basic words when you're around her."

"I thought she was just retarded," Naruto scratched his head.

"You're such an idiot," Kiba said.

"Mmyeah, and also—" Neji got cut off when Tsunade started talking into the microphone at the front of the cafeteria.

"Students," She started in a happy tone. "Some good news—the murderer who broke out of jail was last seen in Russia, which was an hour ago. Which means it's safe now! And that also means that we can have fun night tonight!"

Everyone cheered, except for Sakura. She was _really_ pissed now… Shawn's leave was for nothing, then.

"Okay, so instructions on what we're gonna do tonight will be given outside at the entrance of the woods after you finish your dinners. And make sure you bring your flashlights. Now hurry up."

So everyone did. Sakura did as well, even though she was pissed beyond pissed.

When the last few people filed out of the cafeteria, Sakura sat down on the warm sand, just like everyone else. Most of the teachers were standing in front of them.

"Okay," Kakashi began when he was sure everyone was outside. "Well, today, we're gonna have a race. We're gonna choose your partners… It'll be a two-man team. Each one of you will receive a map and every map will be different—you'll all have different starting points. The objective is to get to the scroll first. There's gonna be a clearing in the woods if you follow the map right. An hour max to find it, because it usually doesn't longer than that."

A low buzz of whispering and muttering filled the air.

"I'm going to list off the names for each team. Neji and Ten Ten, Team One. Shikamaru and Ino, Team Two. Sasuke and Yumi, Team Three—" Sakura glanced at Sasuke, smirking because he got paired up with one of his crazy-ass fangirls. "—Katsu and Naruto, Chouji and…"

_Well now, that wasn't too bad_, Sakura thought. Naruto… She'd just have to deal with his dumbass-ness for the whole time. Better than being with a fangirl. She stood on her tip toes to find Naruto over the myriad of heads surrounding her, now that everyone was standing up. Suddenly, a map was thrusted toward her.

"Thanks," Sakura muttered to the teacher as she took the map from her.

"Saku-chan!" yelled someone from behind her.

"It's Katsu," She hissed at Naruto, knowing it was him before she turned around.

"Oh, sorry. Anyway, I got the flashlight," he waved it in front of her. "So let's go. And can I read the map?"

"Sure." She said, handing it to him. "But wait, are you sure you know how to read maps?"

"Yeah! Of course I do!" He grinned at her. Her skepticism was growing. Then after he looked at the map, he pointed to a red flag that was placed at one of the entrances to the woods.

"We start there." Naruto said in a sure voice. Sakura smiled—maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.

They started into the woods, following the trail of red flags, knowing that they weren't lost. But half an hour after they started, Sakura's doubtfulness came back.

"Naruto… I think we're going in circles." She said, biting her lip and looking around. "I mean, I've seen that tree about a billion times."

"Of course not…" he said, looking at the map once again. Sakura looked over his shoulder, getting her first look at the map that day. Her heart almost stopped.

"Naruto," she said calmly, "you're holding the map upside down."

"Oh, okay." He turned the map right side up. "Here we go."

"No," she grabbed the map from his hands and threw it at the ground. "Not 'here we go'. It's more like 'wow, we're really fucked and screwed beyond shit!', right?!"

"Uh…" He said, not knowing what else to say.

"Okay, well… Just turn on your flashlight on now, it's getting dark. I really can't see much anymore."

She heard numerous clicking sounds, but saw no bright light erupting from the tip of the flashlight like it was supposed to.

"Uh…" He said again. Then he held up the flashlight, showing her the empty battery holder. Sakura stared at it, realization coming to her.

"Oh, you're kidding!" She yelled, and snatched away the battery-less flashlight, throwing it to the ground. She glared at Naruto, who was sheepishly looking away, finding the ground more interesting than her.

"Ughh," Sakura groaned and sat down in the dirt, thinking intently.

A few minutes of silence passed.

"Sakura?" Naruto asked weakly. She looked up at him.

"Okay. Let's go." Without saying anything else, she stood up and began walking in a different direction than they were going before.

Finally, after another half an hour, they reached a clearing of the trees and they faced a steep, rocky wall. They couldn't see where it started or ended, but that didn't matter to Sakura. She threw the map she was carrying to the ground.

"Time to climb. C'mon, let's go. If we get high enough, maybe we can see where the beach is." She grabbed a protruding rock and hoisted herself upward. Naruto, not saying anything, followed her actions. The silence shrouded them heavily, making the tension great and almost tangible. Sakura's hands were becoming sore, but she kept climbing, with Naruto right next to her. After a while, she began to feel tiny sharp things began to prick her face.

"What the fuck…" Sakura said. Then realization dawned on her. "Oh shit—it's raining!"

"Are we there yet?" Naruto asked tentatively.

"No, let's keep climbing… You see that cave up there? We'll rest there and go back down." She said as she grabbed another rock and pulled herself upward. The rain got worse; they were tired. The water pouring down on them made the rocks become slick and slippery, so their hold on the rocks became weaker and less assuring, though Sakura didn't decrease her speed. Soon, the rain became more than just a small drizzle—it became a thunder storm. It made seeing hard and climbing even more difficult, and she slowed down just a bit. And it was cold. Very cold.

"Sakura! Sakura, help me," Naruto yelled, but she couldn't hear him well over the pouring rain. She only heard a muffled voice, and she stopped climbing to look over her shoulder to see Naruto barely hanging on a rock with a few fingers keeping him on.

"Naruto!" She screamed. She couldn't do anything, surely she'd lose her footing if she climbed down. But she needed to help.

"Naruto, here, I'm coming down…" Sakura yelled, hoping he could hear her. She turned her head back and slowly let her right foot slide down onto the rock below. Then she looked back over her shoulder.

He was gone.

"NARUTO!" She screamed again. "Naruto, oh my God, Naruto!"

The rain drowned out her loud screams. Sakura stared down at the woods, where Naruto

fell… and probably died.

"Shit, shit, shit…" She said, cursing herself for being so foolish to climb the rocky hill. But how had she known it was going to rain? It didn't matter now. All that mattered now was that Naruto was okay and that she got herself into the cave only a few feet above her so she wouldn't follow the same fate as him. Shakily, she started climbing again. Finally, her fingers closed around one of the sturdily set rocks of the entrance of the cave and she managed to pull herself up. It wasn't until she was inside the cave did she realize how cold she was. She was freezing—and she felt horrible, like she was about to cry any moment. Not only that, but she was soaking wet and really tired. Her wet bangs were stuck her forehead and her clothes, which felt heavy on her, clung onto her skin. She sat down near the entrance of the cave and leaned against the stone wall.

After a few minutes, she felt almost normal again. She was going to remain here until the rain stop and pray to god for the next few hours that Naruto was alive and healthy.

It was not until she heard heavy breathing that wasn't hers that she realized she wasn't alone in the cave.

"He…Hello? Anyone there?" Sakura called out softly, her voice echoing in the cave. She winced at the loud projection of her voice.

"Hmm… Well, well, looks like we have a pretty little boy…" said a raspy voice. A man stepped out of the shadows and into the grayish light. She stared at the disgusting sight of a man he was.

And then she took in his papery sallow skin, his yellow pupil-slitted eyes, his disheveled midnight black hair, and his ragged clothes. She gasped. He looked just like he did on the newspaper.

The killer.

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

**Author's Note: Okay, yeah, I cut it short for you because my friend was complaining. And this is THE longest chapter I've ever written and probably will write because by now, my fingers are falling off and yeah, Sai's a player and yeah, the killer's there.**

**Soo…………….. Yeah, hope you liked it. And also, I've just started eighth grade and it's throwing all this shit homework at me. Updates will definitely be slower. Lol. HAVE FUN BOYS AND GIRLS! (if boys even read this o.O)**


	16. Chapter 12

**Discaimer: I don't own Naruto.**

**Guys—school homework is getting extremely ridiculous. I didn't know that it'd be so much in 8****th**** grade TT. Also our school makes 8****th**** graders do a musical every year and [it's a waste of time, to me we spend a whole semester getting it ready to present to… all of middle school and a bunch of parents? Well, anyway, sorry this chapter is so late. I don't even know how long ago it was I updated. But, in this chapter, it's different, so it was a bit difficult for me to write, since it had:**

**Fluff, fluff, and more fluff. Be happy. Gawd. Sasuke's also a bit OOC in here because, heh, you're always OOC when you're in love, right:D**

**I SUCK AT WRITING FLUFF, BTW. I SUCK SO BAD… PLEASE AND GO AHEAD FLAME ME ABOUT IT TT, IT'S MY FIRST FANFICTION ANYWAY. I need flames about my fluff scenes. URGHH –goes and kills self-**

**Chapter Twelve**

"Akita Katsu and Uzumaki Naruto?"

Silence.

"…Akita Katsu and Uzumaki Naruto?"

More silence.

"I repeat—Akita Katsu and Uzumaki Naruto!"

Murmurs broke out among the massive crowd of students gathered in the cafeteria.

"Everyone, calm down! Will Akita Katsu and Uzumaki Naruto please respond?"

Again, there was silence. But only for a few seconds until the teachers gathered together and began talking to each other in hushed voices. Sasuke eyed them warily before turning around, searching for spiky blond hair and messy brown hair in the mass of people. There was nothing, though. Had they not returned?

"Okay, everyone…" Mrs. Kurenai said. "We have sent the teachers to search for them."

The soft murmurs of the throng of students grew louder. No one noticed the spiky raven haired boy slip from the warmness of the cafeteria and outside to the cold rain.

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

"G-get away from me…" She whispered weakly. She couldn't scoot back anymore, since the jagged rocks of the walls were already digging deeply into her back. Suddenly, Tsunade's happy bubbly speech about how the killer was in Russia came back to her mind.

"Wait, wait, wait—aren't you supposed to be in Russia or something?"

"It was my apprentice."

"Your fucking apprentice?!" She screamed. "… like an Orochimaru Junior?!"

"…He posed as me and purposely exposed himself during the day—luckily, no one noticed the slight difference in appearance."

Sakura tried to picture an Orochimaru Junior slathered with makeup and other types of accessories. She shuddered.

"Yes…" He grinned and stepped forward again. Before she could move, he bent down in front of her so his face was level with hers. Blanching, Sakura stared into those empty yellow orbs and an odd feeling in her stomach made her want to throw up. That'd be good; maybe after she vomited all over him, he'd leave her alone. But she was way too scared to open her mouth to make any sound at all.

His pale, bony fingers brushed her cheek, leaving a cold impression on her already-freezing face. Sakura closed her eyes, wishing everything was just a nightmare and that she would wake up in a few seconds. Surely, it was a dream—she couldn't feel her body anymore. She was so numb. The only thing that was warm now was her throat, but her throat tingled…

Was that liquid running down her neck? She slowly opened her eyes. Orochimaru was doing something to her neck, and his hands were on her head, his fingers entangled in her wet hair…

She smelled blood. And then a stinging pain ran through her neck, causing her to flinch.

"What're you doing?" Sakura said. It was loud enough for him to hear.

"Your blood… It tastes good." He murmured, his lips moving against the wet, warm skin of her throat.

"What… Ew, fuck!" Sakura tried to push him off but her arms were too weak to and her hands stung from all the deep cuts that the rocks she climbed on had given her. He had noticed and his grip strengthened. Suddenly, he threw himself off of her and jerked his head around to stare curiously at the cave entrance.

There stood Sasuke.

Orochimaru licked his bloody lips and grinned maniacally. Sakura stared incredulously at Sasuke.

"Hello, Sasuke-kun," said Orochimaru warmly.

"Go grow a dick and fuck yourself," Sasuke hissed, his cold voice echoing in the cave.

_Probably already tried,_ Sakura thought.

Orochimaru stood up and began to walk toward the raging boy, who stood still until Orochimaru was inches away.

"I said go fuck yourself. You've already messed with me and my family too much."

"I'm sure your father didn't mind that… incident…"

"Which one?" Sasuke spat, and then he punched the frail-looking man in the stomach as hard as he could, sending him crashing against the rocky walls. A screech of pain escaped Orochimaru's lips.

Shaking violently, Sakura stayed where she sat, and watched, slowly rubbing her bloody, cold throat.

"You stay away from her, too," Sasuke yanked Orochimaru up by his shirt and pulled out a sharp, metal knife from his pocket.

Sakura gasped. "Sasuke-kun, stop it…"

Ignoring her cries of protest, Sasuke drove in the knife deep into Orochimaru's chest, gleefully watching the blood soak the dirty, white shirt. His body became limp, and Sasuke dropped it on the hard floor, as if it were some disgusting insect.

Silence filled the cave.

"Sakura…" Sasuke whispered, stepping over Orochimaru's body and walking toward her.

She began to cry.

"I'm sorry," He bent down next to her, and began his first attempts to comfort her. Stroking her hair, he whispered in her ear that everything was going to be alright, that there was nothing to worry about. A few minutes passed before she could calm down enough to look up at Sasuke's worried face and raise a numb hand to touch his stone-cold skin. Sakura felt so relieved, seeing that familiar face and being able to touch it. But then he, to her greatest surprise, leaned forward and kissed her.

The first thing that Sakura noticed when his lips came into contact with hers was that they were incredibly warm, his lips a flame, melting the iciness inside of her. The second thing she noticed was that it was nothing like anything she had ever experienced before. It was her second kiss by the same person, but this time it was different. It wasn't a kiss through a stupid spin-the-bottle game; it was something with more intensity. The third thing she noticed was that… she found herself kissing back. She wrapped her arms around his neck and let him do whatever to her that was making her feel so good and making her body feel all tingly.

"Fuck," he muttered when he finally pulled away. He turned stood up and turned around. "Come on, let's go."

"Al…Alright," she managed to say, still shocked from her experience, and she pushed herself off the ground, only to stumble backward into the wall. Her knees felt weak from lack of use for such a long time, and she was just really exhausted. She struggled to move forward.

"Here," Sasuke offered her a hand, which she took gladly.

"Holy shit," he said, and turned her hand over, to inspect the deep cuts. "Holy shit," he said again. "You're getting on my back. There's no way you can make it back down without help."

"Okay," she said, and climbed onto his back and let herself be taken back into the pounding, freezing rain. Jumping swiftly from rock to rock, Sasuke remained silent and didn't make any attempts to start a conversation. However, Sakura had a million questions in her head, but she didn't speak to him. Most of them had to do with why the hell he had kissed her, and some were about how he knew Orochimaru and why he carried around a knife like that. Suddenly, as they were making their descent, a thought struck her hard.

"Naruto!" she said loudly. "Shit, I forgot. Naruto fell off here, Sasuke, and I think he's dead and I don't know what to do, I swear. And—"

"He's fine. I saw him on my way here. He's still unconscious, I bet, but a drop like this isn't enough to kill him."

Sakura gaped at him. "Are you serious?!"

"Yeah… It takes a lot to kill him…"

"Oh… Thank God he's okay… Wait, so how did you find us, anyway?"

"I saw the entrance you guys took and remembered it, so I went through there. I found a couple of batteries, too, but they were off-trail. So I followed them."

Sakura snorted.

"Then I kept going and I found a yellow flashlight, which had Naruto's name on it. And then I noticed that there was a freshly made trail through those trees over there, so I followed it and concluded that you climbed up here to see where you were, since Naruto was lying on the ground."

"Oh," Sakura said, astonished. Had Sasuke really gone through all that trouble to find them?

"Where's everyone else?"

"In the cafeteria."

"Oh," Sakura mumbled. She buried her head in his neck and said nothing else until they reached the ground.

"There," Sasuke motioned his head to a tall tree which Naruto was leaning against, drenched, bloody, and unconscious.

"Naruto!" Sakura pushed herself off of Sasuke's back and began to stagger toward Naruto.

"Hey, stop it, he's fine." Sasuke grabbed her arm and forced her back onto his back.

"But how're we gonna get him back?" She said.

"Like this." Sasuke reached into his pant pocket and brought out a rumbled, bright orange package. He opened it, walked toward Naruto, and spilled out what looked like many large clumps of… uncooked noodles?

"Ugh…," Naruto groaned. His eyes fluttered open and he immediately looked down at his lap, where the many large clumps of uncooked noodles were laying. Then he looked up. "Oi, Sasuke. Where'd these come from?"

"You'll get real ramen if you follow us back to the cafeteria."

Sakura gaped at Naruto as he jumped up energetically and punched his fist into the air, yelling, "Dattebayo!"

"C'mon, let's hurry back." Sasuke sighed, and disappeared into the woods with Sakura on his back and Naruto right beside him.

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Sakura laid on her back on the bed, staring morosely at the cabin ceiling. Shifting her weight to her side, she sighed. Then there was a knock on her door.

"Uh, hold on a sec," Sakura said, shooting up from bed and hurriedly grabbing boxers to change out of her long jeans. She mussed up her hair, grabbed her blankets, and wrapped them around her cold body before opening the door.

"Neji, hi." Sakura said with a nasally voice. She looked down at herself to make sure everything was in place.

"Hey, how're you feeling?" He stepped inside.

"Pretty good," She lied. Neji immediately turned around and looked at her. Sakura stared back at his white eyes. She felt like his eyes, although white, were piercing and that he could see everything that she was thinking and feeling.

"Hm," he said, and turned around again. He sat in the wooden chair next to the window. "Okay. I want to know what happened."

"What? Well, I'm a bit sick from the rain, but that's it."

"You know what I'm talking about. What happened two days ago. All of yesterday you're depressed and Sasuke's depressed, and you guys haven't even so much as looked at each other. And when you're near each other it gets all tense."

"Well, so what? It's not like we're best friends or something."

"Katsu," Neji took a deep breath, "I know about you."

"Uh… About what?" Sakura sat down on the edge of her bed.

"Your… gender?"

Sakura stared at him for a long time. "Holy fuck. I am going to kill Sasuke. He is so dead, and I will kill him with this," Sakura lifted her bunny hair clip, "and I will stab him so hard—"

"No! No, I found out by myself! Sasuke didn't tell me anything." Neji interrupted her.

"Oh," Sakura said. "Well how'd you find out?"

"A lot of things. Anyway, what happened?"

"Stuff." Sakura said simply and laid back down on her bed, pressing her face into the cold pillow.

"C'mon, you can tell me."

Sakura shifted the pillow a bit, so she was peeking at Neji with her green eyes. "Why don't you go ask Sasuke? I'm sure he'd be able to tell you every single thing that happened."

Neji bore into her eyes with his, as if looking into every corner of her soul.

"Fine. I'm sure he'll be able to tell me _exactly_ what happened."

"Fine. Then go." Sakura mumbled into her pillow and turned away to the wall. She definitely did not want to talk about that one kiss from a couple of days ago. Not only was it an extremely uncomfortable subject, but it had probably destroyed the once good relationship she had with Sasuke. And she wasn't even sure what to think anymore—did Sasuke even like her? Then why was he avoiding her so much?

Neji looked at her hopelessly. "Just please tell me. You know, I already tried talking to Sasuke."

"And?" She said, with a bored tone, but really caring about what Sasuke told him.

"And he didn't tell me anything."

"That's too bad."

Neji stared into her eyes once again. She felt so exposed when he did that, as if he could read all her secrets and thoughts, as if he knew…

"He kissed me." Sakura stated bluntly.

His pearly white eyes widened and he gaped at her for maybe a whole minute. "He _kissed_ you?"

She nodded. "Yeah…"

"Why?"

"I don't know. I don't know if he did it just because I was so pathetic then that he just felt extremely sorry for me, or if he did because he likes me, or if he just wanted me to shut the hell up."

"Wasn't Orochimaru up there, too? That's the only thing Sasuke told the teachers."

"Yeah. Sasuke killed him… and then I cried because I was so scared and relieved and everything all at the same time. And now I'm confused more than shit."

"Well, that bastard Orochimaru deserves to be dead anyway. And anyone would be scared if they were up there with him alone."

Sakura sat up, drew up her knees, and rested her head on them. She sniffed and then sighed. "I guess so."

Neji stood up from the chair and smiled at her. "Okay, then. I better go because it looks like someone's here for a visit."

"Huh?" Sakura lifted her head from her knees. But instead of seeing Neji, she saw Sasuke standing in her doorway.

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

**Author's Note:O I wonder what Sasuke wants.**

**And yeah, crummy chapter. After so long of an absence, you'd think I'd have a huge chapter like I did last time, eh?**

**NOPE.**

**It's incredibly shitty, I think my writing skills have decreased greatly over time. What do you think?! Comment on it please and OMG just yeah. I'll try to finish the next chapter as soon as I can and yeah… ;;**

**Yeah, I tricked you in the beginning. THERE WAS NO FLUFF! HAH!!! Well, I consider one lousy kiss lots of fluff but whatever. Just think of this chapter as like, a turning point and then the whole scene in her bedroom as a transition. Because that's what it basically is. And I can't write fluff… I'll try later, though. I'll try my best :D DATTEBAYOO.**

**So yeah…… I hope you liked it TT**

**xoxotia**


	17. Chapter 13

**Discaimer: I don't own Naruto.**

**Whoa it's been a long time o.o **

**Sorry I haven't updated. I've written like, half of this one day that I thought I was going to submit it (when my boyfriend was out of town), but I sorta didn't finish. I know there's been like, winter break and quite a few months, but I've been on a really long hiatus I guess.**

**Ah well, It's history class right now and I hope I'm gonna finish XD **

**Chapter Thirteen**

"Hey," he said. He stayed where he stood and didn't move.

"Hi." Sakura tightened the blankets around her, looking up at him. She was trying to decipher his expression, which was emotionless as usual.

"I just wanted to see how you were doing."

"I'm doing well." Sakura sneezed after she said that and looked sheepishly up at him.

"Doing well? You mean you're sick." He smirked.

"It's just a small cold." She mumbled back at him.

"Mmhmm." He was still standing in the doorway. Sakura looked up from her blankets and rested her chin on her knees.

"You can come in if you want."

Sasuke finally came inside the room and decided to sit in the chair that Neji was sitting in before. He looked uncomfortably at his feet, and then stood up. Sakura wondered what he was going to do.

"Um," She said.

He then sat down on the edge of her bed, right next to her. She slightly scooted toward the wall.

"Hi," he said.

Sakura stared at him. "Hi?"

"Yeah, hi."

The silence heavily shrouded them. The call of the seagulls and the laughter of the playing children outside did not reach them.

"So, how's Naruto?"

"They almost sent him to the ER after they heard about what happened to him. But he was stubborn and refused to go so they didn't. He's doing really well."

"Oh. That's good."

They stared at each other for a few more seconds before Sakura coughed.

"Are you sure you're okay?" He asked, worry evident in his eyes.

"Yeah," She coughed again. And since when did emotion begin to show through Sasuke?

"Okay…" He didn't take his eyes off of her.

"So what did you come here to talk to me about?" Sakura finally asked. Sasuke ran his fingers through his hair, combing his bangs out of his face.

"I guess I just wanted to…" Sasuke trailed off for a second. "…to say hi and see how you're doing."

There was something in his voice that told Sakura that he wasn't exactly telling the truth, but she let it go and smiled. "Oh, okay."

"Yep," Sasuke said as he stood up. "I think I have to go now… Well, we both have to go now, but you're sick so you can stay in here."

"Wait, class? I wanna go."

Sasuke looked at her as if she had grown another head. "…What?"

"C'mon, I _need_ fresh air. I've been locked up in this stupid cabin for two friggin' days. And plus, it's hot out there and the AC's turned up so high in here, so I'm colder in here."

"Um," Sasuke thought for a few seconds, not being able to find an argument. "Okay, I guess."

"Yay," Sakura slid out of her blankets and onto the floor, where she put on a large t-shirt and pants. Sasuke waited silently for her as she searched through her drawer for a pencil and her notebook. A few minutes later, they were out the door and under the hot beating sun.

Sakura made sure to stay close behind Sasuke, because she didn't want her fangirls to find her and jump on her, especially when she was sick and vulnerable.

"Katsu!" Someone suddenly yelled. "Katsuuu!!!"

Sakura stopped walking and looked around as Naruto approached her. He was about to glomp her when Sasuke gave him a glare. "Don't. She's still sick."

"Ehhh? Then what's Sakura doing out here?"

"I'm not _that_ sick, Sasuke-kun. I'm fine. I just want to be outside again."

"Ah, well your fangirls miss you. You don't know how many times for the past few days that we had to watch the cabin for one or two of them trying to sneak in to see you."

"Hah, thanks. I wonder what'll happen if I tell them I'm actually a girl," Sakura smiled evilly as she looked down at her chest.

Sasuke started to walk again, and Sakura and Naruto followed him to the ocean. A forming group of people crowded around the teachers standing knee-deep in the water.

"Katsu! Feeling better?" Kakashi said as he patted her on the back.

"Yes, sir," She said to him. He smiled at her response and returned to getting ready for the lesson. After a few more minutes, everyone was gathered around them.

"Okay, everyone! This is going to be the last day here, and I want to remind you again that you will be graded on your notes!"

Sakura made a note to herself to erase the doodles she drew in her notebook.

"Alright, then. So today we're going to be learning about…"

And so on.

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Sasuke woke up in the comfort of his own bed, though he was sweaty and his heart was beating fast. He took a few deep breaths and closed his eyes, trying to remember the events in his nightmare. There were those two yellow eyes he remembered most. Orochimaru's face and hands were covered in blood, but not his own blood—the blood of the dead girl slumped against the rocky wall. The dead girl with the brown messy hair.

Sasuke had not had a nightmare in a long time, and he wondered why he was having them now. He tried to go back to sleep, but he couldn't. He turned on the lamp sitting on the table next to his bed, and got out of bed. Sitting down in his leather chair, he shook his computer mouse till the monitor blinked from pitch black to emanating a bright light. He clicked on the little yellow man icon on his desktop and waited for AIM to load.

Mouse hovering over the sign off button, He searched his buddy list, which consisted of a few gray italic screen names. Just as he was about to sign off, someone IMed him.

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Sakura watched a small AIM notice pop up on the right bottom corner of her screen. Without hesitation, she paused her YouTube video and clicked on it.

**SakKicksAss16**: hey

**BlackSharingan91**: Hi.

**SakKicksAss16**: what're you doing up so late?

**BlackSharingan91**: Couldn't sleep.

**BlackSharingan91**: You?

**SakKicksAss16**: me neither

**SakKicksAss16**: i had a nightmare :\

**BlackSharingan91**: Oh. lol

Sasuke, though he didn't ask, wondered what her nightmare was about.

**SakKicksAss16**: so whats your excuse? too much caffeine?

**BlackSharingan91**: Haha, no.

**BlackSharingan91**: I had a nightmare too.

Sakura almost choked on the bubble tea she was sipping. She had been up for almost an hour by now, and she really couldn't fall back asleep, so she decided that it would be alright if she got a little snack. Shawn's pantry was the hugest thing she'd ever seen, and it was like staring at heaven when she opened it. She had stolen a few boxes of Pocky that were now scattered on her desk.

**SakKicksAss16**: really?

**SakKicksAss16**: what about?

**BlackSharingan91**: Don't remember.

She smiled at the screen. He probably did… He just didn't want to tell her. And plus, it wasn't like Sasuke to admit that he was scared of anything.

**SakKicksAss16**: well if i tell you will you tell me?

**BlackSharingan91**: Tell me what?

**SakKicksAss16**: about my nightmare.

She watched as the little message on her AIM chat box changed from "**BlackSharingan91 **is typing…" to "**BlackSharingan91 **has entered text." She didn't expect him to consider her exchange—it wasn't like Sasuke would care about what her dreams were about.

**BlackSharingan91**: Okay, that sounds good.

She waited for him to type something when she realized he was waiting for her to tell him about her dream first.

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Sasuke waited for her to tell him. After a few seconds, she finally typed something to him.

**SakKicksAss16**: well…

**SakKicksAss16**: i guess my dream was because of orochimaru

Sasuke froze.

**SakKicksAss16**: we were back in that cave

**SakKicksAss16**: and you guys were fighting still.

**SakKicksAss16**: he sorta

**SakKicksAss16**: killed you.

**SakKicksAss16**: it was really bloody…

**SakKicksAss16**: there was blood everywhere.

**BlackSharingan91**: Oh.

Sasuke had no idea what to say. They had almost the exact same dreams, except for the deaths of the same people. That was so weird…

**BlackSharingan91**: Well it's okay now…

**BlackSharingan91**: It was just a dream and Orochimaru's dead now.

**SakKicksAss16**: yeah, i guess.

**SakKicksAss16**: lol now i'm just staying up watching music vids on youtube

**BlackSharingan91**: Nice.

**SakKicksAss16**: yepp. are you doin anything other than chatting?

**BlackSharingan91**: No… Just talking to you.

Sasuke looked at the clock all of a sudden. _3:24 a.m._ it read. And here he was, talking to a girl he had kissed a few days ago. Who knew that Uchiha Sasuke would turn out like this? But then again, did he really like her? Why had he kissed her all of a sudden? The kiss was so impulsive that even Sasuke had surprised himself in the cave. He had no idea what Sakura felt about it—he was sure she was confused, and probably even probably thought he was a freak, except she was far too nice to act mean toward him.

**SakKicksAss16**: cool

**SakKicksAss16**: well… it's already about 3:25 so i guess i hafto try and fall back asleep

**SakKicksAss16**: i've been up for like, an hour

**BlackSharingan91**: Oh, alright.

**BlackSharingan91**: Well good night, then.

**SakKicksAss16**: night

Sasuke hesitated before he typed.

**BlackSharingan91**: Sweet dreams.

He watched the screen intently and part of him wanted to take that IM back from the chat, but part of him felt it was right leaving it there. And plus, it wasn't a big deal. All he said was "Sweet dreams", and that's what everyone said to each other before going to sleep, and why was he even _fretting_ about this?

**SakKicksAss16**: you too :

_SakKicksAss16 __has signed off at 3:26:03  
_

Sasuke chose that moment to sign off and try to go back to sleep as well. He wasn't that tired despite the fact that they spent all of yesterday driving back from the beach in a stuffy bus. Everything was just so weird between them now—well, weird for Sasuke. For one, he'd never been this close to a girl before (in terms of relationships), and all they were were just good friends. A friendship that was started by a silly secret about a certain person's gender.

Sasuke stood up from his leather seat and slid into bed again. His eyes closed shut, he wondered why he was worrying about one girl so much all of a sudden. Maybe… Maybe he _liked_ her…—No. That just wasn't possible.

With an exasperated sigh, Sasuke turned off his table lamp and fell asleep with difficulty.

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

**This chapter was really short. It was just used to show Sasuke's feeling so the readers know how he feels about it all ;D**

**Yeppp… Dang, it's been such a long time since I've last updated. I also used this chapter to show I wasn't dead. Also, it was really hard to be inspired from that last chapter… So I can write easily now, since this chapter's done with. So expect more to come!**

**LOVE, Tia :D**


	18. Chapter 14

**Disclaimer: I don own Naruto D:**

**Chapter Fourteen**

"I told you I forgot."

"Noooo. You said we could exchange dream-telling stories but you know I'm all forgetful, especially at 3 o' clock in the morning. And since you agreed we'd exchange dreams, that means you remembered!"

"Well I wouldn't tell you anyway."

"That's not fair." Sakura crossed her arms. She watched him go through his extremely neat locker to put back his Math binder and books.

"Hn. Life's not fair." He said to her, sliding in his notebooks of the neat row of books.

"You really forgot?"

Sasuke looked away from her, trying not to remember how she looked in his nightmare—bloody and dead. "Yeah."

"Okay then." Sakura stared at him, skeptical.

"Hey guys," Neji strode past them, giving Sasuke a small wink. Sasuke glared at Neji's back. Sakura frowned, trying to suppress a smile.

"OIIIII!!!!!!! RUNNN!!!" Naruto yelled from behind them. Sakura jumped and Sasuke turned his head slowly toward Naruto, looking murderous.

"Ah… Sorry…" Naruto scratched his head sheepishly. "But it's just that… I think your fangirls are here."

"Huh?" Sakura turned around toward the entrance of the school. There was a growing mob of fangirls who were squealing at them.

"Oh my Gaaawwd!!! Sasuke and Katsu are talking to each other!! Aren't they sooooo cute and hot and sexy?!"

"Whatever, I'm getting out of here. Bye, Sasuke." Sakura slung her messenger bag over her shoulder and ran after Neji, who had stopped halfway down the hall to watch the scene the fangirls were creating. Sasuke hurriedly grabbed his backpack from his locker and began to stuff his books in there.

"Well, I'm outta here too, teme. Seeya in a few at Shen's house." Naruto quickly joined Sakura and Neji, who were almost out of the door.

Sasuke groaned in frustration.

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Arms and legs spread out wide, Sakura lay on her bed, staring at her velvet red canopy. She had on a pink cami and jean shorts, and of course she'd taken precaution to make sure her door was locked. She'd been thinking a lot about the night before—and everything else before that. What was Sasuke thinking all that time? He was so hard to understand and why had he even kissed her? She had thought of a lot of theories in mind, none of which included that maybe Sasuke liked her. More than a good friend. And it was just because it was a fact—Uchiha Sasuke did not love anyone. She thought maybe it was just him acting weird cause she was a girl and he went to an all guy's school. But that couldn't be it. He had experienced having so many girls around him before this (his fangirls), so that proved her theory wrong. And there was another theory—maybe Sasuke was just a lonely boy and he needed someone to cling on to? Maybe… But that theory was way too bizarre. No matter how emo Sasuke appeared to be, he wouldn't be that lonely.

"Hey," came a familiar voice from outside of her room, "anyone there?"

"Uh, yeah!" Sakura's heart began to panic, "Gimme a sec!" She was about to grab a big black t-shirt that lay crumpled on the floor, but her visitor's voice stopped her.

Sakura gave a big sigh of relief and went to open the door. There he stood, slouching in his navy blue shirt and black jeans.

Sasuke appeared shocked when he saw Sakura in her girl clothes.

"What?" She asked. "You've seen me before in these kinds of clothes."

"Yeah, but only once. It's always surprising, though, cause you're usually always in guy clothes." He gestured toward the crumpled black shirt lying on the floor.

"Oh, okay." Sakura stepped aside to let Sasuke in, and then closed the door because she didn't want anyone else seeing her like that. "So what's up?"

Sasuke stood near her bed, looking around Sakura's heavily decorated room. "Well, everyone's almost here, so I came to go get you."

"Oh, okay—" Sakura was cut off by the loud ring of her cell phone. She snatched it off her night stand and flipped it open.

"Hello?" She kept her voice low.

"Forehead girl!!" Came Ino's bubbly voice.

"Ino-pig!" Sakura responded just as happily, a wide grin spreading on her face. Sasuke's left eye twitched.

"I haven't talked to you in forever since we weren't allowed to bring any electronic devises and crap on our beach field trip. It was really fun cause—ohhh my God—everyone got to see Sasuke _shirtless_. It was sooo hottt!"

"Sasuke shirtless?" A clear image of him topless immediately appeared in her mind. Sasuke's head jerked up and set his gaze on Sakura at the mention of his name. She shook the image out of her head and said sarcastically, "Wow, Ino. That's amazing."

"Yeah! I know!" Ino said, not catching Sakura's sarcasm.

"So, how's life for you?"

"I'm good… I'm _totally_ pumped for the fall dance! Oh… darnit, you can't go…"

"Yeah, that's okay. Boarding school's going quiet nicely for me."

"I'm sorryyy."

"You know who you're going with yet?"

"Oh my God, I hope Sasuke'll ask me to gooo!"

"Sasuke again?" Sakura sighed. Sasuke looked at her again. "Can't you think about anyone else?"

"Nope. Who else is there to think about?"

"Like, you know… Shikamaru?"

"Shika?" Ino's voice changed completely.

"Yeah." Sakura smiled.

"Well…"

"You _know_ he likes you."

"He does??? Really? Oh my God!!" Sakura could almost picture Ino jumping up and down on her bed.

"Yuhhp."

Ino went on for a few more minutes about how unexpected that news was and how she never expected Shikamaru to ever like her. Finally she paused and asked Sakura, "So if you were able to go to the dance, who would you go with?"

"No one I can think of who'll possible ask me to go. It's not like I'm going to the dance anyway."

"Aww. Well I miss you a lot. You have to come back for like, Thanksgiving and we can go on major shopping sprees."

"Haha, I will, don't worry. Ugh, I gotta go now. Mrs. Cunningham is uh, asking us to go to, uh, sewing classes."

"Ewww. Alright, talk to ya soon, Forehead girl!"

"Bye Ino-pig." Sakura waited for her cell phone to beep, which indicated the end of the phone call. She set it back onto her night stand and turned around to face Sasuke, who was standing less than a foot behind her.

"Whoa," She said, surprised at his sudden closeness. "What?"

"Just wanted to know exactly what you guys were talking about."

"Oh, just about how I was doing and the fall dance." Sakura tried to walk past him, but it seemed like he was looming over her.

"And my name was mentioned because…?"

"Uh, well, because it was Ino talking to me?" Sakura looked at him as if it hadn't been obvious enough.

"Oh." Sasuke looked down again. "So you also talked about the dance?"

"Yep." Sakura found that he finally stepped aside, so she walked toward the door.

"When is it again? Next Saturday?"

"Nope. This Saturday." She opened the door and walked out, not waiting for Sasuke to follow her out.

_This Saturday_, he thought. …_Should I go…?_

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

"Shikamaruuu." Sakura poked him on the forehead.

"Whaaaat?" He replied in the uninterested tone he always used, waving her hand away.

They were sitting on couches in the corner of Starbucks, drinking their latte's and frappuccino's.

"Who're you going to the dance with?" She asked, trying to force her smile down.

Everyone looked at her. "Are you serious thinking about that right now? You are _such_ a girl," laughed Neji. Sakura glared at him. "I was just asking."

"Whatever… Anyway, I haven't given that any thought." Shikamaru said.

"Oh, okay." She looked away.

"What about you, then?" Kiba asked. "Who might you ask to go?"

"Um, I don't think I'm going."

"Huh? Why not?"

"Because, well, I'm sorta busy this Saturday. I have uh…to go visit my hometown."

"Ohh, okay."

Sasuke and Naruto smiled at Sakura's small lie, but didn't say anything.

"So, how about you guys?" She asked the rest of them. Neji looked at his feet and Sasuke kept the same emotionless expression he wore all the time. Naruto's face changed to one of deep thought, which was what he looked like most of the time so it didn't really make a difference. Shen was the first to speak, "Do you need a date to attend the dance?"

"Uh," Sakura lied, "Yep."

"Oh. That's new for us…" Shen scratched his head. "Oh well."

"How 'bout Ten Ten, eh? Nejiiii?" Sakura nudged Neji with her elbow, and she thought she could almost see a blush rise to his pale face.

"What about her?" He said, trying his best to sound nonchalant. It wasn't working too well.

"Oh, well, y'know…" Sakura politely trailed off, so she could move on to her next victim. "And Shikamaru. Whaddyou think about Ino-pi—I mean, Ino?"

Shikamaru's expression became uncomfortable. "Well what do you mean?"

"I mean have you thought about asking Ino to go?"

"…No."

"Mkay. And Naruto's going, too, right?" Naruto nodded at her. "Well who're you taking?"

"I haven't really thought about it yet."

"Well I think you should take Hinata! Since she already likes you and everything."

Naruto made some form of noise. Then he turned to Sasuke and poked him in the stomach. "Ne, teme, who're you going with?"

Sakura looked up at Sasuke.

"I don't know yet, but I think I'll go…"

She wondered what that meant. So that meant he was gonna ask a girl to go with him? Who could it be? Because all Sasuke knew was that he had to bring a date to be able to attend the dance. She wondered who he would choose.

Everyone finished their drinks and drove back to Shen's house. They were taking a break from the huge history project on religion, which everyone had been assigned into groups. Neji, Sasuke, and Sakura was one group and Kiba, Shikamaru, and Naruto was another group.

"Okay, so both you guys know I'm a girl, right?" Sakura asked them once they were in the privacy of her room. Sasuke and Neji nodded.

"Mkay then," She reached under her shirt to pull off the medicinal bandages. Sasuke coughed and Neji grinned at him.

For the rest of the day, they worked on their project and finished it by 9 at night. Sakura thought it was sorta stupid their teacher had assigned it yesterday and expected it to be due tomorrow, but at least she could hang out with Sasuke…

**Hehe. **

"What?" Sakura's head snapped up, looking up from watching herself hot glue a Jesus action figure on their project. Sasuke and Neji turned to her, a puzzled expression on their faces.

**You sooo like Sasuke-kuuun**.

"Shut up!" She hissed.

"What the hell, Katsu," Neji said. Sasuke looked at her, concerned.

**You can't deny it**.

"What do you want—OH, FUCK," Sakura yelled, and she flung the hot glue gun across the room. Tears of pain sprung to her eyes as she sucked on her burnt index finger. "Ah shit, that hurt."

**Oh, sorry, did I distract you by mentioning Sasuke-KUUUN?**

"God, are you okay?" Sasuke asked her, scooting toward her.

"Uh, yeah, I'm fine." Sakura replied, her index finger still in her mouth. Then, glaring at no one in particular, she said, "I just got a lil' _distracted_."

**I said **_**sorry**_.

"Who were you talking to just now?" Neji asked, looking around. "Is there someone else in the room?"

"No, no, I was talking to myself. I, uh, do that sometimes because I learned that it was an, um, good way of like, exercising the dendrites in your brain so you can think better and stuff, y'know?"

"Oh. Well… No, I didn't know that…" Neji mumbled, still skeptical, but he turned back to finishing gluing on pages of information onto their board. Sasuke did the same.

_Don't scare me like that, especially when I'm hot gluing something, _Sakura thought/spoke to Inner Sakura.

**Okay, fine. I already said sorry like ten times. **

_Sure. I haven't heard from you in a long time._

**Oh, I've just been watching you and what you've been doing with pretty boy over there.**

…_Whatever…_

**You can't deny that you like him, right?**

_Okay, fine, just leave me alone now. I have to finish hot gluing Jesus to our project._

**Psh. Excuses, excuses.**

_...I said go away._

**Okay, fine, fine. I was just saying hi. God.**

Sakura rolled her eyes and wondered why she was the only person who had an inner self.

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

**Author's Note: Sucky ending, I know, but I had to end it somewhere. I really wanted to post this chapter :D**

**So… Haha. Nothing else to say about this chapter, just that I wish I owned a Jesus action figure. I saw one in the store once but I didn't buy it and now I regret it D:**

**Review pl0x :DD**

**Love, **

**Tia**


	19. Chapter 15

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Lolz. And yes, Inner-Sakura has awakened… from her deep slumber since chapter three or four. She is back :D**

**WARNING: HANNAH MONTANA/ MILEY CYRUS IS MENTIONED IN THIS CHAPTER. Please don't kill me D:**

**Oh yeah, and to answer one of my reviewer's questions—yeah, I used to play Runescape, but I didn't get 'pl0x' from there. I got it from MapleStory (teehee) 8D Anywayyy… Here's:**

**Chapter Fifteen**

It was a Thursday, like any other day. Or maybe not.

Sakura carefully tore off the small note that was taped to the inside of the door of her locker. She read the small, neat handwriting:

_Dear Mr. Akita,_

_Meet me after school by the mermaid fountain in the school gardens. I have something to give you._

_Sincerely,_

_You'll find out soon enough_

Sakura reread the note about fifty times before placing it inside her messenger bag hanging from the hook in her locker. Looking around to see if anyone was watching her, she wondered who it could be. There weren't many people with neat handwriting like this in her school since they were all guys. She looked at her watch. _2:57 p.m._, it read. She had one more class to go to before she had to meet her mysterious note leaver.

She spent the all of her last class doodling chibi's all over her notebook. Most of her chibi's turned out to have chicken-butt hair…

**Suspicious, eh?**

_Oh, shut up and go away._

**Fine, fine. **

The bell suddenly rang, and Sakura grumpily shut her notebook. She quickly gathered her stuff and ran to her locker to put everything inside her messenger back. Without waiting for anyone, she quickly walked outside of the main building to the school gardens. She walked past the vine covered stone archways and huge bush statues till she came upon the massive mermaid fountain, where she saw someone sitting.

"Hey," Sakura called.

He turned around. Sakura almost tripped, but caught herself in time.

"_N-Neji_??" She spluttered out.

"Yeah?" He asked. Then, as if he remembered what he had to do, he got up from the bench he was sitting on. "Oh yeah, I have something to give you."

"What is it? And why did you leave a note?"

"Didn't want anyone to see," he said as he handed her an envelope.

"Uh, so I walked like fifty miles," She gestured to the pathway behind her, "just so you could give me an envelope?"

"Yep." Neji grinned, as if he had accomplished something wonderful. "So now all you have to do is walk back to the front entrance and go home and read what's inside."

"So… I can't read it now?" Sakura stared at the white envelope in her hands.

"Nope. Hurry now, Shen's driver is probably waiting for you." Neji began to walk past her, but she stopped him.

"Wait—does this have anything to do with me being a girl?"

"Hmm," he thought for a second, "Just a little. It depends."

"It depends?" Sakura wondered what the hell he was talking about.

"Yep." He resumed his walking, and Sakura followed him, not asking anymore questions. She kept looking at the envelope in her hands, turning it over and trying to see if there was anything special about it. The only thing special was a small, elegant "U" that was impressed onto the middle of the flap of the envelope.

"You should put that into your bag before we get back to the main building." Neji said. Sakura did what he said, wondering why it even mattered. After a few minutes, they finally reached the main building, where Shen was waiting by her locker.

"C'mon, hurry up, Katsu. Where were you and what took you so long?" Shen asked her as she approached him.

"Uh, I had to use the bathroom."

"Oh." Shen stared at the floor as they walked to the parking lot. Sakura realized that her answer was probably really gross to think about, but she couldn't say anything like, "I was in the school gardens with Neji so he could give me this really nice looking envelope that has this cursive 'U' on it."

After she managed to get to her bedroom without giving in to the temptations of reading whatever was inside of the envelope in front of Shen, she carefully took the envelope out and opened it. It was a folded letter.

She unfolded it and read it:

_Sakura,_

_Sorry I'm too shy to ask you in person, but I was wondering if you'd like to go to the dance with me? Please?_

_Love,_

_Sasuke_

Sakura's mouth hung open as she reread the letter, written in perfect cursive handwriting. She turned it over to see if there was a message like "LOL JK, YOU JUST GOT PWNT BY THE ALL-MIGHTY UCHIHA SASUKE!!!!!!!!!" on there, but there was none. She turned it back over and read the last two words of the letter again and again, contemplating what they could possibly mean.

**You're retarded if you can't figure that out.**

_I thought you said you were gonna go away._

**Oh, I'm sorry, but I was awoken by the freakin' irregular beating of your heart just now. I thought you had a stroke.**

_What are you _talking_ about?_

**Nothing, nevermind. **

_Right. _

**Soooo… You going with him or not?**

_How can I?? Even if I said I would go, it's impossible! I can't be seen with him at the dance or people'll think we're gay and our reputations'll go down as we're getting maimed by Sasuke's fanclub. _

**Sakura, Sakura. You suck at making plans. Gawd, just buy a freakin' wig. **

_Uh, sorry, but I'm not Hannah Montana. _

**Whatever. Look at you now—you **_**are**_** like Hannah Montana. I mean, all you changed was your hair and BOOM, you look like someone else and no one else can recognize you as Haruno Sakura. **

Sakura paused. She _was_ like Hannah Montana in a way with that whole new-identity-with-new-hair thing. Hm.

_Maybe you're right. _

**YES! So that means you're going with him??**

_Wait, I never said that. _

**Oh please. I'm your inner self. I know exactly what you wantttt, and you want to go to the dance with Sasuke-kuuuun. **

_Whatever…_

**Okay, stop denying it and start working. We have to go find a wig shop and buy a nice wig for you. Hmm, what color?**

_Wait, wait, stop. I said I didn't even know if I'm going. _

**Black? Nice choice. So it'll be a long, pretty black wig and it'll be the perfect match for Sasuke since everyone'll be like "**_**Le gasp,**_**who is that beautiful girl with black pretty hair like Mr. Perfect's dancing with Mr. Perfect??"**

_You really think I should say yes?_

**Ah, finally. OF COURSE, I'M YOUR EFFING CONSCIENCE. **

_Okay, fine…_

**Well we need to start with Neji. Hmm… How about contacting him?**

_Sure…_

Sakura hesitantly left her bedroom. Just as she stepped outside, she saw one of Shen's maids pass by her.

"Excuse me, miss?" Sakura called out. The maid turned around, looking at her curiously.

"Yes? What can I do for you?"

"Um, do you know where Shen is? Er… Or where our school's directory is?"

The nurse smiled. "There is a school directory in one of your study desk drawers. Shen put it there a few weeks ago if you needed it."

"Oh," Sakura smiled back at her. "Thank you very much!"

She watched the nurse go down the hallway and disappear around the corner before she slipped back into her room. Just as the nurse said, there was a shiny thick directory laying idly in one of her drawers. She flipped through the massive book till she found the page with Neji's phone number on it, and entered it into her cell phone.

He picked up mid-first ring, as if he were expecting her.

"Hello?"

"Hi Neji, it's me… Katsu." She said, using her fake name just in case anyone overheard her.

"Yes?" He asked, even though he probably knew why she called.

"Well I read the letter. And…"

"And?"

"I dunno."

"Are you gonna say yes or no?"

**Now! Say yes now!**

"Uh, yeah."

**Good girl.**

"Shut up." Sakura muttered. Luckily, at the same time, Neji went: "Oh really? That's great!"

"Er, yeah," She responded.

"So why are you calling me? Shouldn't Sasuke be the one you're calling?"

"Actually, I sorta need your help." Sakura said reluctantly.

"Mmhm?"

"Well I thought about it and the only way I can go is if I can get a…a wig."

"A wig? Good idea. What color? Black? 'Cause black would be a nice color. A nice long, pretty black wig."

Sakura nearly dropped her cell phone. "Uh yeah, sure. Black."

"And…you need help with getting a wig?"

"Yeah. I don't really want to go alone just in case anyone sees me by myself and gets suspicious… And I need you to help me choose a dress because no one else can know about my true gender."

"Hm… Okay then. How about…8 o' clock tonight. I'll pick you up and since we don't have much homework today, you can go, right?"

"Yeah."

"Mkay then. See you then. Bye."

"Bye."

Sakura closed her cell phone and sighed.

_Well that's great._

**Well I think that was a smart move.**

_Whatever._

Sakura looked at the clock. _4:33 p.m._, it said. Three and a half hours left.

She dug out her math homework from her messenger bag and began to work on it.

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

"You _what?!_"

"You heard me."

"YOU _WHAT?!?!_"

"Okay, okay, calm down. I haven't seen you this angry in like, fifty years."

"Hyuuga Neji… You are absolutely _unbelievable_."

"Well who else would you go with anyway?"

"I…" Sasuke ran his fingers through his hair, giving out a big sigh and thinking of the stacks of letters he got from his fangirls asking him if he'd go to the dance with them. He was now in his room with Neji, watching the football game. "I don't know."

"See? I can't see you going with anyone else anyway. And plus, you were planning on going to the dance."

"But… But at least you could've made the letter less… Less weird! '_Love, Sasuke_'?! What the hell?! _And_ I never plead for a girl to go to a dance with me."

"Oh, yes, I forgot—you're an Uchiha. Pshh, whatever. Everything I wrote in that letter was the truth and you know it."

"How?"

"Well I've been to your house plenty times and I can take as many of your special customized envelopes as I want without you noticing. And I stole some of your old homework assignments to copy your handwriting and that's basically it."

"I meant, how is the stuff you wrote in the letter the truth?"

"Oh." Neji smirked. "That's easy. Well, for one, you _are_ too shy to ask her. And two, I know you want to go to the dance with her. And three, signing is as '_Love, Sasuke_' perfectly fits your relationship status."

"Noo," Sasuke tried to whack him with the remote control, "it _isn't_."

Neji waved the remote control away. "Hah, sure. Just keep denying it. Besides… She already called me and told me her answer to the letter."

Sasuke paused. "What'd she say?"

"It's not like you care."

"Shut up, what'd she say??"

"Oh my God, look! A commercial for Viagra!" Neji pointed to the T.V. screen. "Hahaha, only losers would buy that."

"…What. Did. She. Say." Sasuke hissed menacingly. Neji rolled his eyes.

"Fine. She said yes, she'd go with you."

"Oh…" Sasuke didn't know what else to say to that.

"And so I'm picking her up at eight to do some shopping. And stop looking at me like that, I'm not gay."

"Shopping for what? Strap-on's—"

"A wig and a dress."

"Oh. A wig."

"Yep. And it's almost time to go pick her up. It's 7:15."

"Hn," Sasuke returned to watching the game. In the corner of Neji's eye, he thought he caught a small smile on Sasuke's face.

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

**Author's Note: So I updated fast and this was a short chapter. I like it this way, actually… Hehe. **

**Soooo… I guess everything's going smoothly. But, you know, there's always gonna be that one problem amidst everything perfect –COUGH-. But maybe not alwaysss… You never know :D**

**I had so much fun writing this chapter. I'm glad I'm sorta on a roll with this fanfic again and I got out of hiatus. It's also cause I have nothing else to do since I got my internet taken away and I have to sneak on to another computer to submit chapters. Hehe I'm such a bad girl XD**

**Oh wellz. Love you guys and review pl0xx0rz,**

**Tia**


	20. Chapter 16

**Disclaimer: Naruto © Kishimoto **

**PeridotDragon, if you're reading this, I'm really sorry about the huuuuge delay! I've been drawing a dojinshi for this (I posted the pages on my deviantART;; xxtariseregonxx. and I was really lenient on updating this, so now I feel really bad! Sorry to make you wait for another week and a half D:**

**Plus, the computer that I was sneaking on for internet totally died on me. It says the wireless is connected but it's not T.T So I'm really frustrated about getting access to the internet right now. **

**Anyway, Neji's like Sakura's new BFF XD I find it kinda funny that he basically takes the role of what Ino's supposed to be doing, except in a more manly fashion. Teehee :D**

**Chapter Sixteen**

"How about this one?" Neji pointed to a long black wig sitting on one a white mannequin head. Sakura bent down to get a closer look, and she was a bit surprised at the price. It was almost sixty dollars... It looked real and really pretty, though—layer-y, long, and shiny. 

"Hm," Sakura thought about it. "I could try it on." 

She lifted it off of the mannequin and pulled her brown bangs back, placing the wig on her head. A curtain of black hair blocked half her vision, but she pushed the hair out of her face and looked around for a mirror. Neji was smiling next to her, pushing her toward a mirror. 

"It looks really good," he said. She stepped in front of a mirror and angled her head in different positions before she grinned. The hair made her fair skin and green eyes stand out and she looked really different. "I like it."

"Good. So," Neji started, "you can get it styled at a hair salon to make it pretty or whatever for the dance. You can get your eyebrows dyed on Friday night. Go ahead and buy it, then we can go and find a dress."

They left the wig shop after Sakura bought the wig. Neji drove her to this rich shopping centre area where there were a lot of huge shops. They walked around until they came upon a nice big shop where there were many beautiful dresses behind the display window.

"Ooh," she murmured as they approached the dress shop. "Pretty dresses."

When they entered, they were greeted by bright fluorescent lights, clean wooden floors, and a lot of racks of a huge variety of dresses. Neji followed Sakura as she walked through the store, looking at the dresses to see which one she liked the best. She picked out a few and he waited outside of the dressing room. After a while, Sakura finally came out with both her wig and dress on, and stood in front of Neji. 

"Well?" She asked, spinning around.

Neji grinned.

"Perfect."

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Sakura crammed her books and binders into her locker before walking to advisory. On her way, she bumped into Sasuke as he turned around the corner.

"Oh," she mumbled. "Sorry."

"S'okay," he said. She resumed walking, but he stopped her.

"I was just wondering about, uh…" Sasuke trailed off. _Gah,_ Sasuke thought,_ Stupid Neji. He always has to create trouble for me._

"Yes?" Sakura said, turning around. 

"Your answer to my… letter…"

Sakura jerked back slightly out of shock. She never thought he'd ask her face to face… or that Neji would've told him or something…

**Well what did you think? That he'll find out through subliminal messages in his shit or something?**

_Shut up._

"Oh, um. Yeah. Yes, I'll go with you." 

"That's good," Sasuke said. "Neji mentioned that you guys went shopping yesterday?"

"Yep. I got a wig so no one'll recognize me. If Ino sees me she might recognize me, but I doubt it."

Sasuke smiled. "Well did you buy your dress too?"

"Uh huh. Neji actually paid for it, too, since it was sorta expensive and all. He's really nice."

"Right." Sasuke said, thinking the exact opposite. Well, not really, but still—He was the one to blame for the letter, right? 

"Actually," He began, about to tell her about who was really behind all of this, "I—"

"SASUKE-TEMEEE!" Naruto was running toward them, a huge grin on his face. "So you asked Sakura-chan to the dance!" 

Sasuke twitched. "Yes."

"AWWWW!" Naruto squealed loudly. "You two are so _cute_ together! AWW!"

Sakura could feel heat rising to her cheeks. This whole thing was so strange, though… Why did Sasuke feel like taking her to the dance all of a sudden? It wasn't like him to ask through a letter either—_and_ he signed it as "_Love, Sasuke_". All she wanted to do was grab him by the collar of his dress shirt and shake some sense into him as she yelled, "YOU'RE AN UCHIHA. UCHIHA'S DON'T LOVE. ESPECIALLY NOT ME."

But that would've been weird. 

"Yeah, whatever. Shut up, dobe." Sasuke told Naruto.

"Ah, we gotta get to advisory before the bell rings. C'mon," Sakura walked quickly down the hall to her advisory as Naruto took Sasuke by his sleeve and dragged him toward advisory. 

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

The next day dragged by slowly, leaving Sakura bored out of her mind in every class. In her last class, she was counting the seconds before they were finally dismissed. She didn't have to pay attention much in Language Arts class because all they did was read stupid stories and find their meaning or whatever. She stared blankly down at her packet of short stories, glancing at the clock every few seconds. 

"Hey," someone whispered to her. Sakura looked to her right, where Sai was sitting. She noticed he was staring at her very intently, as if trying to figure something out.

"Do you…have any sisters?" He asked tentatively, mostly because Sakura was glaring at him as she always did. Once he asked her that question, she cocked her head to the side.

"Why?"

"If you do have a sister, I think I ran into her a few days ago…" 

"Er…" She paused. Suddenly she remembered how Sai had tried to molest her on their field trip when she dressed like a girl. "Masami…"

"Yeah! That's her!" He grinned. 

"Sai! Katsu! Quiet, this in-class assignment is individual work. Please turn back to your stories." The teacher scowled at them. 

"Sorry," they apologized. 

"Thanks a lot," Sakura hissed at him. He frowned. 

"Anyway, is Masami your sister? I didn't know you had any siblings." 

"Er," Sakura couldn't see any way through this. She accidentally said that name out loud and now Sai was on to her. "Yeah, she is. She doesn't live with me, but she lives in Suna with my uh, grandparents."

"Ooh. Are you two twins? You guys look a _lot_ alike. It's as if you had on girl clothes I wouldn't be able to tell the difference."

"Uh, yeah we're twins." Sakura started to worry about what this would lead to. It was just a few white lies, right? 

"Wow, cool."

Finally, a few seconds later, the bell rang. 

"Okay, everyone—your homework is to finish the questions in the packet by tomorrow! You're dismissed."

Everyone jumped up from their seats to gather their stuff. Sakura probably left the classroom faster than she ever did before, hoping that she could avoid Sai's questions about her nonexistent twin. 

She power walked down the hallway to her locker, where Neji was standing with a content smirk on his face. 

"What is it this time?" Sakura sighed. 

"Excited for tomorrow?" he asked.

"Sure," She answered in a flat tone as she put her books and binders into her messenger bag. 

"You have to be. I mean, I did take the time to make your dress look really pretty."

"Oh my God, what did you do to it?" 

"Just told my tailor to add some nice designs…" He smiled slyly.

"Hm…" Sakura closed her locker and followed him out of the building to the pickup area. "What kind of designs?"

"Uh, you'll see. Didya tell Shen to go home without you? And that you're sleeping over?"

"Yeah." She climbed into Neji's limousine. It took about fifteen minutes to get to his house, which size could rival that of the size of Sasuke's mansion. She noticed the significance difference in style though—Neji's house was a traditional Japanese style, with the sliding screen doors and shiny wooden floors. 

"Wow…" Sakura breathed in as she stepped through the main entrance of his house. Huge half wall-spanned fans and paintings hung on the walls and large vases painted with intricate pictures beautiful women and myths decorated the corners of the room. A few displays of samurai swords lined the walls. 

"Shoes," Neji warned her before she could take another step. "My uncle's anal about wearing shoes in here."

"Oh," She said, taking off her shoes and placing them by the door.

"Okay, you're not going to kill me when you see your dress. Alright?" He said as she followed him through his house. 

"Can't be too sure about that. Depends on what you did to it."

"You'll see soon enough." 

He led her into a small room with a huge wardrobe that took up the entire right wall. 

"I'm guessing my dress is in there?" 

"Yep," Neji replied. He slid open the doors of the huge wardrobe and she saw a line of maybe a hundred dresses.

"Holy crap, who wears these?" She walked past the long line of dresses of all kinds—various kimono's, extremely formal dresses, sundresses, party dresses, and a bunch of others that had interesting styles she'd never seen before. 

"Uh, my grandma and Hinata, if she needs any." He was rummaging quickly through the dresses, the clacking sound of hangers in the air.

"Oh. Gosh, there're so many…" 

"Ahah! Found it," Neji carefully unhooked one of the hangers and withdrew it from the wardrobe. 

"Uh…" Sakura stepped forward to get a closer look. "It doesn't look any different from when I last saw it."

The blue silky dress hanging in front of her hadn't changed at all. It was a spaghetti strap v-neck dress that ended near her hips. Attached to the hem was a light blue soft material that Sakura didn't know the name of that stopped a few inches above her knees. 

"Well…" Neji turned it around. Sakura gaped, motionless and silent.

Most of the back was the same, too. The soft material cut in the back and ended mid-calf like a peacock tail. 

"How…What… What the hell…" She pointed to the large Uchiha fan symbol that was professionally sewed onto the peacock tail of her dress. It was made of the exact same material as the soft material so it didn't look out of place—it looked as if it were supposed to be there.

"You like?" Neji smiled, although he knew she was on the verge of murdering him. 

Sakura sighed. "Well… I mean… It looks pretty, but did you really have to add the fan?"

"Yeah. If you're gonna dance with an Uchiha, you better look right for the job." 

"Sure," She said, still a bit shocked about Neji's addition to her dress. "So should we go now?"

"Yeah… We hafto go dye your eyebrows now. Then you can wear your wig and everything'll look great."

"Alrighty."

Sakura followed him out of the room to the really long hallway with billions of sliding doors. After a minute of walking, Neji finally stopped and slid open a door. 

"Wah…" Sakura stepped into the room. 

"Welcome! Neji-san, Sakura-san." A woman with long flowing black hair rose wearing a light purple kimono rose from her sitting position. 

"I told her you were coming. This is my grandma's assistant and she'll be helping you with all that stuff. In the meantime, I'll be uhh… doing my homework. Bye!" Neji slipped out of the room and quickly closed the door. 

Sakura smiled at the woman who had gotten out a bunch of hair styling tools and laid them on the wooden table in front of her. The woman smiled back. "You can call me Rika." 

"Okay, Rika. So…I'm guessing we'll be starting with hairstyles first?"

"Yes. And then we will choose your eye color." 

"Eye color?" 

"Neji-san requested that you wear color contacts so no one has any idea it's you at the dance tomorrow."

"Oh…" Sakura sat down across from Rika. 

"Then we'll be working on what jewelry you'll wear, what color your nails will be, and what kind of makeup you will put on."

Sakura gawked at her for a few seconds. "Are you serious? It's just a dance, you know… No need to get so into this." 

"Neji-san informed me that you will be dancing with the son of one of the most prestigious families in the nation."

"Er… Yeah, I guess…"

"Good. We will begin now." Rika smiled pleasantly. 

Sakura sighed. This was going to be a long day. 

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

**Author's Note: Whew! Got that chapter done with. The next is going to be fun because well, you know. :D**

**Again, this chapter is short. Haha, I designed the dress by myself and it sounds sorta ridiculous but whatever. If you're confused on what the dress looks like, just check my deviantART 'cause I drew the dress and posted it on there. **

**Weeee :D**

**I hope you enjoyed it. Reviewz pl0xx0rz cause they keep me pumpeddd x3**

**Love, Tia **


	21. Chapter 17

Disclaimer: Naruto © Kishimoto

**Disclaimer: Naruto © Kishimoto**

**Dude. I freakin' beat Kingdom Hearts II like, a week ago. I know I'm slow on catching up with all the other people who played KH II, but it was 'cause my brother stole it and hid it away in his freakin' dorm at college for like, half a year. OMFG YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS?! I CAN OFFICIALLY LIKE, SAY THAT I KNOW THE STORY BECAUSE I PLAYED THE GAME AND NOT BECAUSE I LOOKED AT SPOILERS (unlike me with Naruto XD). That game was such a sweet game… I almost cried during one of the cut scenes. Yes, I am that emotional with video games. **

**Boo. Now I have to wait for freakin' KH III to come out in a year. Lol, I heard it had nothing to do with Sora. And if you're even wasting your time reading this Author's Note, then can you tell me in your review (if you do review this chapter) if it has anything to do with Sora and his story? It'd suck if it didn't oo. The trailer made it seem like it another person was gonna be the main character. **

**Anyway, Sakura's pretty dressed up 'cause she's supposed to be like… I dunno, "worthy" of dancing with an Uchiha? Don't ask me (even though I'm the author). –shifty eyes-**

**Chapter Seventeen**

_Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. _

Sasuke stared at the grandfather clock resting against the wall. He fiddled with his blue tie as he waited for any sign of people outside of his house.

It was 6:30. He looked outside of the tall glass windows, but the only thing he could see was the stupid garden and the huge fence closed by the massive iron wrought gates. He pressed a small gold button on the wall beside the front doors and a small 5 by 6 inch piece of the wall sunk an inch deep inside the wall and slid up, emitting a soft whirring noise. In its place was a screen with a few buttons lining the bottom edge of the screen. He pressed one of the buttons. The screen immediately lit up. A clear, colored view of the area outside of the gates showed up and he frowned. Except for the guard, no one was there yet.

_Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. _

Sasuke sat down on a couch next to the windows. The dance was at 7… And she still wasn't here. Maybe she actually didn't want to go with him, maybe it was all a prank set up by Neji and Sakura was part of it. Maybe Neji wanted to humiliate him in front of everyone else who had a date—Neji asked Ten Ten a few days ago and Sakura managed to set Shikamaru and Ino up easily. Naruto asked Hinata on his own accord, but he didn't get the point that Hinata didn't take it as going as only friends.

Why was he even worried? He was one of the hottest guys in his school and he had a bunch of fangirls. What girl didn't want to go to the dance with him? He bit his lip. Well, there was Sakura… But she wouldn't do that to him, right?

Suddenly, the ring of the doorbell resonated throughout the house. He immediately got up and opened one of the doors.

"Uchiha," Neji smirked as soon as he saw Sasuke.

"Hyuuga," Sasuke smirked back.

"May I now present to you your wonderful date?" Neji stepped back and lightly shoved Sakura—or who was supposed to be her—in front of him.

Sasuke stared. It couldn't be Sakura. Her now layered hair, long and black, framed her pale face and her eyes were black. She wore a blue dress, his favorite color, and pearl earrings. A sapphire beaded sterling silver necklace hung around her neck.

"Heh, check this out, too," Neji turned her around to show Sasuke the back of her dress.

Sasuke froze once he caught sight of the familiar red and white fan. "You added…my _clan symbol_?"

"Yeah, Neji added it _without_ my knowing." Sakura fake-glared at Neji. Neji grinned at her.

"But she's not even an Uchiha…"

"So?" Neji said. "She's gonna be a date for one."

"Well…" Sasuke looked at it some more, "…at least it looks like you're supposed to be my date. And you don't even look like Sakura at all—I bet no one can recognize you," Sasuke was still staring at her hair.

"I guess." Sakura stepped forward slowly, and she immediately planted her foot there before moving any further. She sighed as she glared at Neji. "These heels are so hard to walk in."

"Well it's not my fault that you don't like wearing heels…"

"But they're like, 5 inches tall!" She tried raising her foot to prove her point but set it back down when she almost fell over.

"Yeah, cause you're short. And they're pretty," Neji retorted.

Sakura snorted at his comment on her height, but she had to agree on his latter statement. Her a hundred and fifty dollar white REPORT Signature heels were fairly expensive. Neji had taken her shopping again that morning for shoes in the same shopping area they went to to buy her dress. She didn't expect Neji to pay for her stuff again, but he was willing to do so—probably as an apology for what she had to go through last night. Rika had taken her to a beauty salon where she got a French manicure and her legs waxed, much to her refusal. "It's necessary to look the best," Rika had told her. By the time they were done with dressing her up and applying make up on her, it was time to go to Sasuke's. And all was well now: she was at Sasuke's mansion in her dress, about to go to a three and a half hour dance.

"Yeah. Well, should we go now? It's 6:42…" Sasuke turned to Sakura. She nodded. "Okay, let's go. Neji, don't you have to go pick up Ten Ten?"

"Oh shit," Neji muttered as he looked at the grandfather clock. "Okay, well, my ride's right there and I saw your limousine when I came. C'mon."

They walked through the front doors, down the steps, and toward the limousines waiting for them.

"See you guys at the dance," Neji waved as he stepped into his limo.

Sasuke and Sakura slid into the seats of their limo. The car started and followed Neji's out of the front garden to the street, where they then went in opposite directions.

"So did Neji do all of this to you?" Sasuke asked as they drove along the Uchiha mansion borders.

"Yeah. He had his grandma's assistant go through every single little detail with me before she allowed me to go to sleep."

Sasuke laughed. "That must've sucked."

"Mhm, and then he woke me up at seven so we could go shopping, which makes me sometime question his gender due to his strange preferences."

"I guess he was just excited about getting you ready."

"I guess, but he really didn't have to wake me up that—sorry, hold on," Sakura reached inside her black purse, digging up her ringing cell phone. She glanced at the caller ID before answering.

"Shawn?"

Sasuke twitched. He glared at the cell phone Sakura was pressing to her ear.

"Hey Saku, 'sup?" Shawn's voice sounded through the speaker.

"Oh… I'm going to the fall dance."

"Oooh. You goin' with anyone?"

"Yeah, I'm going with Sasuke."

There was a short pause. Sasuke's lips formed a small satisfied smirk.

"The Uchiha, huh? Wait… But won't people think you're gay? If they see you dancing with him…"

"Er, I changed my appearance so there's nothing to worry about."

"Oh. Cool. Wait, so that means you have your pink hair back??"

"My pink hair?" Sakura smiled. "Nah, I chose black hair this time. It goes well with the whole girl-who's-gonna-dance-with-Sasuke thing. I have black hair, he has black hair, I have black eyes, he has black eyes, et cetera, et cetera."

"Hah, cool. Well are you with Sasuke right now?"

"Yeah, we're driving there."

"Can I talk to him?"

Sakura's brows furrowed in confusion. "Uh…why?"

"Just cause."

"Okay… Here, its Shawn," Sakura handed over her cell phone to Sasuke, who took it reluctantly.

"Hello?" Sasuke said in an emotionless tone. Sakura sighed.

"Yes," Came Sasuke's simple reply a few seconds later to a question that Sakura didn't hear.

"That is not for you to decide," Sasuke said in the same emotionless tone and shut her cell phone, ending the call. He handed her cell phone back to her.

"What'd he say?" She asked, taking it.

"Nothing much, just wanted to know how I was doing."

Sakura knew that was the biggest lie she'd ever heard but decided to let it go.

"Oh, okay," she said. She then noticed their closeness and how they were just an inch apart from each other. Sakura tried not looking at Sasuke, but every once in a while she couldn't help it. After a few more minutes, she caught him staring… or maybe he was just looking around, but he was looking at her chest, not that she had much of one. He realized she was looking at him, and he immediately looked away. If Sakura didn't know him better, she thought she saw a blush make its way to his face.

Sasuke stared at the empty black leather seats across from them, scolding himself. _No, no, no. Do not look at her boobs, you dumbshit. Just get used to the fact that she's really pretty as a girl and actually has boobs. STOP TRYING TO LOOK AT HER BOOBS. _He restrained himself from doing so by screaming that in his head over and over again. He'd never thought that he'd have problems like this, especially with a person who claimed to be a boy for the first part of their relationship. He even got caught looking at her chest; what a shame.

"Ah," Sakura pressed her nose against the glass. "I think we're there."

Sasuke, who pretended to ignore this comment, glanced outside. They were almost at the school, which looked very different in the dark, bigger and threatening. People were arriving in their limos and there were a bunch of people in suits and dresses walking around the main building toward the gym, which was located on the right hand side of the school lot. Then he heard Sakura gasp.

"Mom?" She whispered. Sasuke followed her gaze, which landed on a pink haired woman with bright blue eyes who looked to be around her forties. She was wearing a forest green tailored suit and skirt with heels. Standing near the main building, she talked and laughed with a familiar looking tall blonde woman. Sakura's face was filled with worry. "Oh, no. Ms. Yamanaka must've wanted her to help chaperone…"

"That's your mom?" Sasuke had to lean on Sakura to get a better view through the window.

"Yeah… Dangit, how am I supposed to get through the dance without her recognizing me?"

"Don't worry, I don't think she'll look at you and immediately think you're her daughter. I mean, the daughter she knows has green eyes and… pink hair."

Once Sakura's mom was out of view, Sasuke went back to his former sitting position, hoping Sakura didn't notice that he was practically on top of her just a minute ago.

The limo slowed down a seconds after, and the driver opened the door for them. Sakura stayed close behind Sasuke as they walked past the main building. She noticed her mom and Ino's mom stare at her and Sasuke when they passed by, and they began to talk again. She could only hear a part of the conversation—"…Uchiha Sasuke… girlfriend… Ino… so crazy about him… hopefully won't murder her…"

Sakura giggled, and Sasuke nudged her arm playfully with his elbow once they were out of hearing range.

"Wow. That wasn't so bad, was it?"

"Sure. Well now I just have to avoid her for the next three and a half hours."

"It'll be dark in there. No one'll recognize you."

He was right. Once they entered the gym, Sakura had no idea where she was anymore. The gym was unrecognizable. There were strobe lights moving everywhere and music playing from huge speakers, which from behind sat a DJ. Suddenly, she heard several squeals.

"Ohmigawd look at her. Do you think she's Sasuke-kun's girlfriend? Why does she have his clan symbol on her _dress_? Do you think that he customized it for her? Oh my GAWD she's so pretty, but do you think they might have an arranged marriage? Maybe they're actually not in love and it's an arranged marriage they're having and and and…"

Yes. It was that bad, but she noticed that Ino was not apart of their large group. Despite their comments, she didn't look at Sasuke's insane fangirls and walked past them, grabbing Sasuke's hand. She felt Sasuke sort of jerk his hand once she made contact with it, but he let her hold his hand. Smiling with satisfaction, she heard some of the fangirls hiss. Once they got past them, she let go of Sasuke's hand and smiled at him. "I'm gonna go and uh, talk to a few people, okay?"

Sasuke nodded and Sakura walked away, trying not to trip over herself in those extremely tall heels. Finally, she caught sight of her best friend talking to Shikamaru, and sauntered over to head bits of their conversation. It was easy to look unsuspicious because they were flirting next to the tables, where all the food was. Smirking, she slowly poured herself some lemonade from a pitcher as she listened to Ino talk to Shikamaru.

"Excuse me, dear, I was wondering if you'd like to take a picture with this group of people."

Sakura nearly dropped her glass of lemonade. _Slowly, _she reminded herself_, slowly turn around._

**You're screwed.**

"Er, hi." Sakura smiled at the lady standing behind her, a.k.a. her mom. Hoping her mom wouldn't recognize her voice, she tried for a British accent. "Sorry, really, but I have to go. Maybe later."

**You suck at accents, you know that?**

_STFU._

Her mom smiled politely at her. "Alright, maybe later. Those girls over there wanted to take a picture with you. Are they your friends?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Oh, okay." Her mom smiled again and walked away to the group of girls glaring at her. Fucking fangirls.

Sakura hurriedly walked away before her mom came back and had an epiphany that her daughter was standing right in front of her.

A hand came out of nowhere and grabbed her arm. Sakura yelped.

"Sorry ma'am, I was just wondering if…"

She tried to jerk her arm back, but he didn't let go. She finally looked up at him to tell him to go away, but instead she stared at him, wide-eyed.

"Sakura! I finally found you. Wow, you look different," grinned Shawn.

"Whoa, how'd you get here? And don't say my name so loud… People might recognize me."

"Recognize you?" he laughed. "I could barely recognize you just now. I had to make sure it was you, so I stopped you."

"You scared the shit out of me just now! Why're you here? Shepton High School wasn't invited to this dance…was it?"

"Uh… No, but I decided to come anyway."

"Why?"

"Hold on," Shawn paused and stood there silent, listening. A slow song that just started played from the speakers. "Perfect! You wanna dance with me?"

"Uh…" Sakura didn't know how to respond, but she couldn't say no. She looked around for Sasuke, but didn't see him anywhere and somehow she felt disappointed.

"Sure," she said in a faux cheerful tone, and Shawn grinned, taking Sakura's hand and leading her to the middle of the gym. Then she wondered if she made the right choice. What would people think…? If she came with Sasuke, she should be the one dancing with him, especially since there was that huge red and white fan on the back of her dress, as though she was officially and only Sasuke's. But Shawn didn't seem to mind. He placed his hands on her small waist and she hesitantly put her hands on his shoulders.

"So," Sakura said, continuing from their conversation from a minute ago, "Why did you come here?"

"I just wanted to see you and apologize for leaving early at the beach field trip thing."

"You could've just told me over the phone or something."

"Wouldn't have been the same."

She sighed. "Whatever."

"Really, I'm really sorry. I wouldn't have left, you know…"

"Okay, fine, it's just that you're not supposed to be here and if Sasuke sees you he'll like, kill you in twenty different ways."

"I'll be fine. I just wanted to see you, really."

"But not here, not when you're not supposed to be here," Sakura glanced around to make sure no one was listening, put her face a bit closer to his, and lowered her voice. "Listen, my mom's here. She's chaperoning with Ino's mom, or it seems like she is. I have to be really inconspicuous—"

"Sure, like going as Uchiha's _girlfriend_ is inconspicuous."

"Whatever. And if I get caught here I'm in deep, deep shit."

"I just want to know why you went with Uchiha…"

"_Sasuke_," Sakura corrected him, "asked me to go, so I agreed to go."

"And you went through this much trouble to go with him?"

Sakura knew he meant her major makeover. "Yeah? I mean, it was sorta fun…"

**Yeahhh right. Fun.**

_I_ SAID_ STFU_.

"Right, sure. Like you've always loved wearing makeup and heels and dresses and shit like that."

"Why are you even making such a big deal out of this?"

"Because it feels like I don't even know you anymore."

"What the hell!" Sakura hissed. "What're you talking about?"

"You've just changed so much, it's like you're a whole new person."

"No I haven't, I haven't changed at all!"

"Oh, sure."

Sakura felt like Shawn's icy blue eyes penetrated her under his strong gaze. She felt so uncomfortable.

Suddenly she felt a warm hand on her bare shoulder, and Shawn's grip on Sakura's waist tightened.

"Excuse me, but I was wondering if you'd let her dance with me instead," a voice said and relief flooded through Sakura, relaxing her tense body. It was Sasuke.

"Sure," Shawn replied, and let go of Sakura, surprising both Sakura and Sasuke. Then Sasuke glared warily at him and said, "Okay then, c'mon Sakura."

"Wait," Shawn reached out and grabbed Sakura by the arm, forcing her to face him. Sasuke was about to shove Shawn away, but he stopped short when he saw what happened next.

Shawn kissed Sakura.

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

**Author's Note: Dangg, stupid Shawn. Whutcha gonna do now?**

**I wonder what'll happen next :D (Even thought I'm the author)**

**Lolz **

**Well I spent a lotta time on this and it took forever to writeee and its pretty longgg. I completely rushed the last part but whatever. Parts of this chapter here and there suck so bad. T.T**

**Gotta go sleep now .**

**XOXOTIA**


	22. Chapter 18

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto D:

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto D:**

**It's been a while, but I've been busy. xD Sorryyyyy. **

**My boyfriend had to threaten me to post this x3 (not saying that he's a sasusaku crazed fan, of course ;D)**

**WARNING, READ BEFORE YOU READ THE CHAPTER:**

**Shen is not retarded. He can spell. It's just a text. **

**:D**

**Chapter 18**

Sakura stared at her knees as she sat in an uncomfortable white chair. Thoughts clouded her mind as she bit her lip, occasionally glancing up. Her watch read '11:13…p.m.,' and she probably looked ridiculously horrible at that hour. The thin black jacket she wore over her blue dress did little to keep out the cold from the blasting air conditioners from freezing her thoroughly. People stared for a few seconds as they walked past her, but she ignored them and only paid attention to her slightly shaking knees. She hated this place—she hated hospitals: the smell, the cold atmosphere, she hated it all. What she hated most was that empty feeling inside her as she waited. Every minute that ticked by, she could feel herself grow more and more distressed.

"Haruno Sakura?" A tall nurse carrying a clipboard walked out of the room in front of her. Sakura nodded and stood up, her butt aching from sitting too long, and followed the nurse into the room. Sakura's eyes immediately landed on a bandaged teenage boy lying on a white bed. His eyes were closed, and he seemed to be sleeping.

"Mr. Elrid seems to be doing fine. Just some bruises and a few major cuts, but we fixed that. Who I'm really worried about is Mr. Uchiha…" the nurse walked on through the room, and Sakura followed her. She found herself in front of another bed, looking at an unconscious pale-skinned boy. His black bangs were brushed away from his serene face, and small bandages dotted his forehead.

"He has to have stitches, and he has a few broken bones in his arm…," the nurse went on, but Sakura didn't listen to her. She just stared at the broken body in front of her, and resisted the urge to step closer and touch his face, and how she wanted to trail her fingers along his near white skin.

"Are you sure you're family?"

"Um, yeah. I'm his cousin." At that moment, she was thankful for Neji's makeover—with pink hair, she couldn't get away with anything like that. If she didn't say she was family, they wouldn't let her in there.

"Ooh. I didn't know that the Uchiha's had any relatives near here…"

"I'm visiting." Sakura didn't look at the nurse, hoping she'd get the point that Sakura didn't feel like talking.

"Oh. Okay. Well, Sasuke will have to stay here till tomorrow because neither of his parents are home."

"Okay. I'll stay here a bit longer," Sakura said. She pulled up a chair and sat next to Sasuke's bed as the nurse left the room. She thought of what happened a few hours ago, how Shawn had kissed her and Sasuke became so infuriated. How everything turned into total chaos after that, when Sasuke decided that Shawn had no reason to live after he kissed her. But she wondered why Sasuke had gotten into such a condition—was it that Sasuke had underestimated Shawn?

"Sasuke," Sakura said to him, watching him sleep. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know Shawn was gonna _do that_ to me, and trust me, I didn't even want him to, really, and I shouldn't have danced with him but I thought it would be okay and—"

"…Sakura?..." the black haired boy replied, a smirk appearing on his face.

Sakura grinned. "You're awake!"

"Yeah, your incessant babbling woke me up," he muttered, his eyes still closed.

"Sorryyy…"

Suddenly her cell phone vibrated from her small purse. Sasuke opened his eyes and looked at her.

"Huh, that's weird. I thought they didn't allow calls… oh. It's a text… from Shen…," Sakura quickly read over the message. Sasuke watched her eyes scan over the message about five times before she slowly closed her phone. She was frowning.

"Um, so how are you feeling?" Sakura asked him, suddenly smiling again. Sasuke didn't answer for a few seconds, staring at her.

"I'm feeling okay, just a little sore. What did Shen want?"

"Uh, nothing. He just wanted to know, um…the homework for tomorrow."

"Lies. What'd he really want?"

"I _said_, the homework— hey!" Sakura reached out for her cell phone that Sasuke had snatched away from her hands.

"Give it!" Sakura leaned over the bed as he waved his arm out of her reach, flipping open her phone and finding the text from Shen.

"Here we go… wow, this is a really long text…," he said, getting ready to read Shen's essay-long message out loud. " '_katsu, i'm rly sry i had 2 send this 2 u thru a txt, but i tried calling & u wont pick up so i'm guessing ur alredy in suna w/ ur family. my parents r coming home soon from europe & they r bringing friends w/ them—french & german ambassadors. apparently they r planning on staying at our complex becuz theyre not coming for govt purposes. it's all rly complicated so i dont no. u're going 2 have 2 find another place 2 stay for a while cuz my parents said sumthing about having no other guests over while the ambass r over. i'm so sry 2 kick u out like this… i'm sure u can find someone who'll let u stay at their place. -shen_'"

Sakura bit her lip. Sasuke laid there, cell phone in his hand, close above his face.

"And so, I'm leaving Konoha Academy and actually going to boarding school. I don't have any other place to stay." Sakura declared.

"And so, Haruno Sakura will be staying with Uchiha Sasuke."

"What?!" She snatched back her phone. "No way."

"Do you really want to go to that boarding school?"

"No, but still… Fine, I'll just stay at Naruto's."

Sasuke almost laughed. Sakura realized that maybe Naruto's place wasn't such a great idea.

"Fine, then I'll go to Neji's."

Sasuke frowned.

"Yeah, that's right. I'm sure he'll let me stay at his house. Let me call him to make sure…" Sakura went through her phonebook for Neji's cell and pressed 'call'.

They sat in silence, her cell phone pressed hard against her ear.

"Hello? Sakura?" Neji's worried voice answered.

"Neji!"

"Hey, are you with Sasuke right now? Is he okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, he's fine. Just a few broken bones. Anyway, I have a favor to ask of you. Shen said that I couldn't stay at his house anymore and—"

"Oh yeah… He told me about that after the dance. Where'll you stay?"

"Wellll… Sasuke offered for me to stay at his house, but I was thinking that maybe I could stay at yours?"

"Er… Hm. Maybe… Maybe not."

"Whaddyou mean?" Sakura thought she could tell he was smiling as he spoke, but she couldn't be too sure.

"How would you like to stay at Sasuke's house?"

"Well that's why I'm calling you; I want to stay at yours—"

"Alright, Sasuke's house it is! Great choice, Sakura, I'll see you at school on Monday! Bye!"

"Wait—"

A small beep sounded from her cell phone, signaling the end of the call.

"Ugh," she stuffed her cell into her purse and crossed her legs huffily. Sasuke was smirking.

"So?"

"So what?"

"What'd he say?" Sasuke crossed his arms, as if to tell her stalling was not an option.

"Um, he said…that I should stay at your house."

"Well that's settled then," he closed his eyes and smiled.

Sakura could not tell what he was thinking. Was he actually _happy_ that she would be staying over? Impossible. He couldn't be. Why would he even think about letting her stay at his place? She'd just be a huge nuisance to him and plus, he didn't even like her that much, so…

She just wanted to grab him and scream at him, "WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME!?"

"Sakura…" Sasuke began.

Sakura looked at him, and leaned forward. What was he going to say? Was he going to do the impossible and declare his undying love for her? Or was he going to say "LOL JK I HATE YOU, NEVER STAY OVER AT MY HOUSE EVARRR."?

"I…"

Her breath was hitched in her throat.

"I think its way past visiting hour. What time is it?"

Sakura almost fell over and died.

"Um," she looked at her watch, "It's almost a quarter till midnight."

"Oh, it's really late then. You should go home and get some rest… Tonight hasn't been the best night for you, has it?"

"Well it hasn't for you either," Sakura sighed and stood up, causing the chair to scoot an inch back. "But yeah, you're right. I'm sorta tired, so I'm going to go now."

"Alright. Bye."

"Bye, I hope you feel better by tomorrow," Sakura made her way around his bed and started toward the door.

"Wait," Sasuke called. Sakura turned around, waiting for him to say something. He motioned for her to come closer, and she walked back to the edge of his bed.

"Yes?" She said.

Sasuke reached out and gently pulled her down by the arm till she was inches away from his face. He leaned forward and kissed her softly on the cheek.

"Night, Sakura," he breathed. Sakura felt heat rising to her cheeks as he pulled away.

"Night, Sasuke," she said, and though she urged her legs to move at a normal walking pace, she sprinted out of there.

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

**Really, **_**really **_**sorry to have ended it there. And I'm really sorry this is a short-ass chapter. I have exams to study for T.T**

**Ahhhh God kill me. And for those who IM me, thank you! I really appreciate getting IMs that encourage me to write more, and I love getting to know you!**

**I promise the next chapter won't be as short XD**

**Love, Tia**


	23. Chapter 19

**Disclaimer: I don't know Naruto.**

**Now for the chapter you've alllll been waiting for. Or maybe only a few of you, but whatever. This a chapter that I wrote completely in a notebook, and then copied it onto the computer XD**

**I'm currently in China for vacation, but I brought along my notebook so I could write my fanfiction cause I feel bad for slacking off for the past month XD I just found out my grandma had Internet (though really REALLY SLOW) after much network searching and connecting and such. So rejoice; I'm posting (finally) more chapters up. I'm determined to work hard this summer as I did last summer :D**

**Chapter 19**

Dragging two suitcases along with her, Sakura stepped into the extravagant guestroom. It was not at all like one of the smaller guestroom that Sakura had stayed in at Sasuke's sleepover. This room was perhaps the same size as Sasuke's—bigger than Shen's guestroom and just as fancy. Plus, it was conveniently placed _right_ next to Sasuke's room…

What was bad was that Mr. I-am-going-to-kill-you-because-I-am-INSANE (a.k.a Itachi)'s room was across from hers. Avoiding Itachi would be easy, considering that she never saw him leaving his room (which led Sakura to think of quite a large amount of possibilities of what Itachi could be doing in there), but the strong aura that emanated from his room unnerved her. How did Sasuke manage to deal with it?

"So, uh… How do you like your room?" The jet black haired boy stepped in next to her. He looked around the room, as if to make sure nothing was out of place.

"I really, really like it," Sakura replied, making sure not to look Sasuke in the eye. Things have been a bit awkward ever since the day he chose to kiss her on the cheek. Sakura was definitely confused about her feelings for Sasuke, and confused about Sasuke's feelings for her.

**It's quite clear, what both of your feelings are.**

_Shut up and go away._

**Nevarrrrr. Anyway, you're so dull-witted sometimes that you surprise me. I thought you were a very bright young lady.**

Sakura stuffed her Inner self to the back of her mind. The last thing she needed right now was to be told how much of an idiot she was.

"Well, it's good that you like it since this is the room you're going to be staying in for the rest of the school year." Sasuke looked at her and grinned.

Sakura blushed. What the hell? Why was she blushing? All he did was smile. He smiled. Big freakin' deal. She lifted her hands to her face, as if trying to hide the blush, but she realized that she'd look ridiculous. Her hands dropped to her sides.

"Oh yeah, and feel free to dress like you normally would. Everyone already knows who you are, so it doesn't matter."

She laughed. "Yeah, everyone, including your insane brother."

"Eh, just don't mind him."

"Which is kinda hard to do."

Sasuke smiled. Sakura took note of how amazing he looked when he smiled like that. Why couldn't he just smile like that all the time? Even though his fangirls would try to (gang) rape him, it was better than his usual cold, indifferent exterior.

"Well, I have to unpack now…" Sakura moved her suitcases and laid them down against the wall.

"Want some help?" Sasuke seemed reluctant to leave her, but he was probably bored and trying to be nice.

"Uh, sure. You can help unpack the blue suitcase," Sakura said. She had made sure that when she packed, she brought along another suitcase (a red one) to put all her girl stuff in. Fitting it all into one suitcase was nearly impossible.

They zipped open the suitcases. Sakura began to take out the sloppily folded school uniforms when she realized…

"Whoa… what's this?" Sasuke held up a pink lacy thong.

…that she had packed her clothes in the wrong suitcases.

"Er, uh… that, that's my uh…" Sakura felt her blush intensify as she looked down at the suitcase in front of Sasuke. More of her panties, her bras, and not to mention her female hygiene products, were all crammed together into one blue suitcase.

Sasuke must've noticed her embarrassment for he smiled again and said, "Do you want to switch places?"

Sakura merely nodded and scooted over the Sasuke's spot as he scooted over to hers.

"So, uh, have you finished that Demosthenes essay for history yet?" Sasuke began to take out the rest of her school uniforms as Sakura hurriedly took out her personal things.

"Um," she began, not looking up, "Yeah. Well, not yet, but uh, I'm nearly done. Actually, I just have to think of a good conclusion and proofread it and other things like that, you know, since I usually suck at writing conclusions."

Sakura blushed some more. Sasuke had to keep himself from smiling—Sakura was so cute when she blushed like that.

"Right, cool. If you need any help, just come over to my room. We can study together, too."

Sakura nodded quickly. Sasuke finished unpacking most of what was in her red suitcase and he looked over at what Sakura was doing. To her left, she had a small pile of toiletries next to a pile of lingerie. She was taking out a few more things before she closed her suitcase.

They moved the now empty suitcases into Sakura's huge closet and Sasuke helped her put her guy clothes on the hangers and in the drawers. Sakura placed all her girl stuff wherever she needed them; most of them were placed in the bathroom and the drawers.

When they finished, Sasuke stood up to close the bedroom door. Sakura looked at him, suspicious. What was he gonna do now?...

Sasuke sat down on the black leather couch. "Let's talk," he said.

"About what?"

"About a certain teenage boy named Shawn Elrid."

Sakura was majorly confused now. Why would Sasuke want to talk about Shawn of all people? She eyed Sasuke. "…What about him?"

"Well, for one, you've lived here in Konoha for a long time. How could you have _not_ heard of him?"

Sakura thought for a second. "I guess you could say I'm sorta sheltered… I dunno. Like, I didn't even know who you were until Ino became my best friend."

Sasuke's eyes widened. She almost laughed out loud.

"And," she added, "I didn't know a lot of people outside of my old school. So I only knew mostly girls, and I knew Naruto and Shikamaru through a party Ino dragged me to once."

"Oh. Another thing is…Do you know why Shawn is…" Sasuke trailed off. It seemed difficult for him to put it in a polite way. "Uh, do you know why Shawn is well-known?"

Sakura shook her head. She hadn't talked to Shawn since the day of the dance, which was six days ago. Even though Shawn had sent her loads of texts and IM's, she ignored them all.

"Well", Sasuke began, "he's sort of…"

"Just say it. I don't really care if it's bad."

"Okay, okay. Well he's had sex with a lot of people. I mean, a _lot_. And there's a rumor going around that he's actually tried to rape someone."

Sakura stared at Sasuke. Then she said, "That's only a rumor, right? I mean, there's a very large possibility that it isn't true. I don't think Shawn would do something like that."

Sasuke sighed. "Sakura, what I'm trying to tell you is that I don't want you being near—well, I want you to be more careful around him."

_See? He's not jealous. He's just worried about me. _

**Oh, please. Can't you see what he's trying to do?**

_Yeah, he's trying to warn me about__**—**_

**WHATEVER. Okay, fine, maybe he is, but can't you tell that he doesn't want you to be associated with Shawn in ANY WAY by trying to tell you all about Shawn's "dark past"? I mean, why didn't he tell you **_**before**_** Shawn kissed you?**

_Just go away!! _

Sakura wanted to shuffle off into a small dark corner and die.

"Look", she said, "if it's about the dance, then I just want to let you know that I haven't talked to him at _all_ since then."

"Well, no, I meant like…when you're with him alone in your bedroom late at night, and both of you are on your bed."

"Whatever. That was like, 8 chapters ago, and I know for a fact that he wasn't going to try anything. I mean, especially not with me."

"Didn't seem like it during the dance," Sasuke said bitterly.

**Oooh now he's angry. NOW HE'S ANGRY. Can't you tell?! He's fucking jealous! Gawd, Sakura, why can't you just let anything happen between you and Sasuke?! I'M YOUR CONCIENCE FOR GOD'S SAKE, I KNOW WHAT YOU WANT.**

Sakura didn't respond to Inner Sakura, nor did she respond to Sasuke because she didn't know what to say. He was right, but some part of her didn't want her to believe what Sasuke just told her about Shawn. Sasuke could see it in her face that he had won.

"I'll be in my room finishing the Demosthenes essay. If you need any help, you know where to go," he said before he stood up from the couch. She nodded, and he left.

She thought a very long time about the past week, and what had happened. There was a lot of talk about 'the girl that Sasuke brought to the dance', and how they thought it strange to never have seen her before the dance nor after the dance. No one (except Shawn, Sasuke, and Neji) knew it was her at all, and it had stayed that way. Shawn seemed to be still faithful to her about not revealing her secret, and that was good. She wondered how Sasuke felt about things now, but she felt uncomfortable asking him.

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Sakura awoke to the sound of someone opening her door. She kept her eyes closed and pretended to be sleeping; if it was Sasuke, which it probably was, she didn't want him to see her in her morning look, which she thought was rather an awful sight.

Something about the room changed a second later, as if someone had entered, but she didn't hear any footsteps that she expected—she didn't hear anything. She opened her eyes slowly.

She gasped. Her heart seemed to have stopped and she lost her voice, which was the only thing that kept her from screaming.

She stared straight up at blood red eyes. She couldn't move, couldn't breathe. Her whole body felt as if it were rooted to the mattress, and she didn't blink, her eyes transfixed with the red ones perhaps three feet above her face. Not a sound was made.

It took Sakura about thirty more seconds before she found her voice again.

"W-what are you doing here?"

The older Uchiha didn't respond. He didn't move at all. He just stood there next to her bed, staring down at her.

Suddenly, someone pushed open her door and almost tripped into her room. Sasuke.

"Get out of her room!"

Finally, Itachi moved away from her bed and looked at Sasuke. He spoke in a low voice. "I was merely observing her."

Sasuke looked murderous. Itachi walked toward him, poked him on the forehead, and said, "It's quite interesting that she would be a person of interest to you."

He left her bedroom, leaving Sasuke and Sakura alone.

"Sorry", Sasuke said. "He can be weird sometimes…"

"He didn't make such a great first impression on me, so I sorta almost died of a heart attack when I woke up to see him in my room." Sakura found that she could breathe normally again.

"Well he can get like that sometimes… You know, like, scary and evil and 'I want to kill you' and stuff. But he's okay other times, too."

"Oh okay, 'cause I thought he wanted to kill me in my sleep."

"Nah…well, maybe, but don't worry about it."

Sakura noticed how he inserted the word 'maybe' in there, but she didn't say anything. She sat up, pushing the heavy covers off of her, and stepped out of bed.

"I'm gonna go clean up."

"Okay, I'll meet you downstairs for breakfast," said Sasuke. He turned and left her bedroom.

Twenty minutes later, Sakura was downstairs eating a bowl of milk and honey nut cheerios next to Sasuke, who was munching on a piece of toast. This was the first time 

that Sakura saw the Uchiha's kitchen. It was very clean, very neat, and very large—they were sitting on wooden stools and eating at a white marble table. They had a dining room, but that was used mostly only for dinner parties or formal dinners with important business or famous people.

It was a beautiful Saturday morning, so, at around 11 am, Sasuke decided to invite everyone to Ichiraku's (mostly because Naruto yelled at him over the phone till he had chosen that place).

After bandaging up her chest, Sakura donned a black polo t-shirt, a thin grey converse sweatshirt, and faded blue jeans. Sasuke put on a blue t-shirt and khaki's (A/N: sound familiar? 8D), and they both drove off to Ichiraku's, where Naruto, Neji, Shikamaru, Ten Ten, Hinata, and Ino were waiting. Sakura noticed that they all seemed to be sitting in boy-girl couples. She smiled. How interesting. Sasuke seemed to notice too, because he smirked at Neji, who glared at him. Then Sasuke sat down next to Sakura, who chose to sit next to the window.

They were in the middle of eating their ramen when Sakura cursed very loudly and pulled her hood above her head. Everyone looked up outside the window to see Shawn stroll by the restaurant. Sakura kept her head down, but Shawn still looked at her hooded self a little too long to not notice. He turned around and walked into Ichiraku's.

Sakura quickly excused herself from the table and power walked to the men's restroom.

"I wonder what's wrong with him", said Ten Ten. "I thought they were best friends or something."

Neji looked at Sasuke. Sasuke frowned at him and tried to find Shawn among the many people in the restaurant, but he didn't have to look very long, for Shawn was approaching their table. Shawn stopped in his place once he saw the empty spot next to the window.

But then he smiled very nastily and went into the men's restroom.

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

**Author's Note: Well, well. Now it's revealed. **

**I wrote this chapter in TWO DAYS. I wonder how many I can write by the time I come home… (July 4****th****). Heh. **

**Oh yes, and one of my reviewers, enviez-moi, seems to have read my mind. What she wrote in her review was a lot of what I had in mind, so congratz to her! :D **

**Much love, TIA!**


	24. Chapter 20

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. XD**

**Okay, guys. Yes. Hiatus done. I'm back, it's summer, I'm on vacation (a boring and long one)—put all that together and you get inspiration to write again. I've really missed you guys, too ^^. It's been a while… enjoy. :]**

**I promise you'll like this chapter. Maybe? I dunno. Just read xD.**

**Chapter 20**

_Drip. Drip. Drip._

Slumped on the seat of the toilet, Sakura ran her hands through her messy brown hair. It smelled awful—like the stench of old people mixed with old hand sanitizer. Is that what ramen shop's mens' bathrooms smelled like? Whatever. She didn't care.

The squeak of the door resonated throughout the bathroom. Quietly, she lifted her feet off the ground and placed them on the back of the door of the stall. What if it was Shawn? She didn't want him to find her. Not here, not now.

The unseen person walked over to one of the urinals and unzipped his jeans. The awkward sound of pissing filled the bathroom, and Sakura held her breath, hoping not to be heard—even if it wasn't Shawn. Just then, a second person burst into the bathroom.

"Where is she?"

It was Sasuke.

The sound of peeing slowed to a stop, followed by the zipping up of jeans. Then came Shawn's voice. "What're you talking about?"

"Stop acting like you don't know. Where is she?"

"What are you implying?"

The tension was almost tangible. Sakura tried not to breath, but she wanted to let Sasuke know that she was fine without Shawn finding out that she was there.

"I'll ask you one more time, Elrid. Where is she?"

"Oh, I dunno." She heard footsteps come closer to the stall section of the bathroom. "Maybe you can help me _look_ for her? Hm?"

"I swear, Elrid, if you don't—"

"Or what, Uchiha? C'mon, we both know Sakura's in here." Shawn walked past all of the stalls. "No, nobody's in any of these. Or maybe she's hiding on one of the toilets?" He pushed the door of one of the stalls open. "Nope, not this one. Hm, let's try this one?" He pushed another door open.

Sakura prayed for Sasuke to stop him in time. She didn't want to be found by Shawn. Her mind began to race as Shawn opened another stall door, two stalls next to her's. _Please, no. Please, God, no, _she begged. Where was Sasuke? Why wasn't he stopping him? Why was he just standing there?

_Please, Sasuke. Do _something_. Anything._

As if he heard her prayers, Sasuke suddenly said, "If you try anything, Elrid, I will fucking _kill_ you."

"Empty threats, empty threats," Shawn muttered as he opened the stall door next to her's. "All I hear are empty threats. And all I want is to talk to her. I haven't talked to her days. Jeez, Uchiha, calm down."

Just as Shawn was going to open her stall door, Sasuke stepped over to him and pushed him away. "I said, if you try anything, I will—"

"Don't touch me, _Uchiha_," Shawn spat. "Get the fuck away from me. I already said I just want to talk. What the hell is your problem, hm? It's not like you're her fucking bodyguard—whoa, what the hell. Get away from me. Get away, I said! What's your problem?!"

Sakura heard Shawn take many steps back as Sasuke approached him. She was confused by the sudden change in Shawn's tone. What was happening?

"I'm asking you one _fucking_ last time, Elrid, to _get the fuck out_." Sasuke growled.

"Okay! I'm leaving! Jesus, just stay away from me!" Shawn pushed past Sasuke and scrambled for the door. Shawn shoved the door open and left the bathroom without saying another word. Sakura sighed, relieved, and let her feet slide from the back of the stall door to the floor.

"Sakura?"

"Sasuke…" She pushed herself off of the toilet and unlocked the door, pushing it open.

"Are you okay?" He stepped forwards and wrapped his arms around her. She nodded as started to blush.

"I'm fine. Thank you so much… You're always saving me…"

"Yeah, I understand."

Sakura hugged him back, enjoying the feel of his warmth and the smell of his forest-y scent. Things felt right like this.

Suddenly, the bathroom door squealed opened. As an old, corpulent man waddled in, Sasuke and Sakura sprung apart. The man stopped in his tracks, eyeing them both down.

"Er, hello," Sasuke spoke. "We'll just be going now."

Sasuke and Sakura awkwardly walked past the man and out of the restroom.

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

_Buzzzzzzzzzzz. _

"Ah, fuck. Not again."

_Buzzzzzzzzzzz._

"Ughhhhh," Sakura groaned. "Why does he always call when we're studying together?"

_Buzzzzzzzzzzz._

"Just don't answer it," Sasuke suggested. "Why haven't you put him on your block list yet?"

_Buzzzzzzzzzzz._

"Oh, I forgot about that."

"Here, I'll do it for you." Sasuke snatched her phone off of the desk.

"No! Don't, I'll do it myself!" She futilely tried to grab her phone back, but Sasuke held it out of her reach.

"Hm, what's this? Why's your background a picture of me?" Sasuke smirked.

"No reason whatsoever, Uchiha. Give me back my phone." This time, he let her take back her phone.

"How did you get a picture of me, anyway? I don't recall you taking a picture of me."

"Look," Sakura said as she added Shawn onto her cellphone's block list, "you don't need to know. It doesn't matter. Here, I'll change my background. Does that make you happy?"

"I never said I wanted you to change it, I just asked how you got a picture of—"

"Sasuke, let's just go back to studying, please." She looked back at the study guide on the laptop screen. "When was the French Revolution?"

"1789 to 1799. Tell me how you got my picture."

"I took it somewhere, okay? Doesn't matter. When was the storming of the Bastille?"

" July 14th, 1789. Where did you take it? It looks like it was from school."

"Sure. Maybe. Doesn't matter. When was the Reign of Terror?"

"1793 to 1794. So the picture was from school? When'd you take it?"

"Sasuke, look. It _doesn't matter_, okay?"

"It does to me."

"Why? Why would it ever matter to you?"

"Because it's a picture of me. And it sort of feels like you're stalking me." Sasuke smirked again.

"Fine! Okay! I took it when you weren't looking during lunch. God, I'm sorry. There, you happy now?"

"No. Why'd you take it?"

"No. Reason. Whatsoever. Okay? No more questions—"

"Why'd you take it?"

Sakura sighed. She didn't know why she even took it. She just thought he looked so nice that day… God, she was so stupid. She shouldn't have set it as her background. "I took it because…"

"Because?"

"Because… I don't know."

**HARUNO SAKURA, YOU TELL HIM THIS SECOND THAT YOU LIKE HIM OR I WILL MAKE YOU HAVE MIGRAINES FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. **

_Jesus, not now. Go away._

"Sakura, you can tell me."

That's when Sakura suddenly noticed that Sasuke had moved much closer to her than he was before. Was he doing this on purpose? She was blushing—God forbid—and her heart was racing madly.

**Tell him now. **

"I took it because… Because, Sasuke, I… I like you."

She looked down at her lap, but she could feel his intense stare. "I mean, I like you. Well, I think I like you. I think I actually love you. Maybe. I think so. I don't know. I do like you a lot though—"

Sasuke cut her off with a kiss.

A kiss that felt so incredibly good, so incredibly… incredible. She kissed back, but he pulled away soon afterwards. Too soon.

"I love you too, Sakura."

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

**Author's Note: OHOHOHOHO! How's that for an after-hiatus chapter.**

**Did you like it?**

**DID YOU LIKE IT?**

**Cause I liked it.**

**-dances for joy-**

**So glad I got that chapter out. A short chapter, but one with much substance. **

**Anyway, I love you guys. I'll hopefully be posting again. I have idears. And I'll be in China for TWO MONTHS. So you know, that means more boredom… which means more writing. And plus, I brought my laptop (so I don't have to borrow one). So yay!**

**Much love,**

**Tia**


	25. Chapter 21

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto :D**

**Chapter 21**

"No!" Sakura yelled as she shot out of her seat, slamming her hands down on her desk. Her whole advisory shot confused looks at her.

"Katsu, what are you doing? Sit down," Kakashi commanded. "Be polite."

"Sorry, sir," Sakura gritted her teeth, but slid back down into her chair.

_This can't be. Tell me it's not. Tell me this isn't happening. _

_Why is this happening?!_

Sakura flung a panicked glance to Sasuke, whose eyes weren't focused on her, but rather on the black-haired teenage boy striding through the classroom door. Kakashi smiled warmly at the teenage boy, and then turned to the class.

"Today we have a new student. Introduce yourself, please."

"Hey, my name's Shawn Elrid. I came from Shepton High School so some of you may already know me." He winked at Sakura, who glared at him. She could feel Sasuke's anger pulsing throughout the room; she looked over at him once more and saw something peculiar: his eyes seemed to be tinted…crimson?

"There's an empty seat behind… Katsu. Please take your seat there."

Shawn nodded and weaved his way through the desks, keeping his eyes on Sakura the whole time. Turning away, Sakura bit her lip. The uncomfortable tension in the room had built up to the point of nearly snapping, for the class had caught on that there were definitely massive waves of animosity between Sasuke and Shawn.

Was everything a dream these days? Last night confessions… definitely felt like a dream. And especially now felt like a dream. Except it wasn't a dream. It was a nightmare. A massive nightmare. Everything was so fucking unbelievable these days.

"Hey, nice to meet you. What's your name?" Shawn asked with a smirk plastered onto his pale face. Everyone in the classroom, except for Sasuke, had their attention to Kakashi, who was making the daily announcements.

"Fuck off, Elrid," Sakura sneered. She knew he was mocking her. What a bastard.

"Whoa, no need to be so rude. I was merely hoping we could be _friends_." He nearly hissed the last word.

"Well we're not. And we probably never will be. So leave me alone."

"Why not? Why are you even treating me like this? What did I even _do_?"

Sakura sighed. "You know what you did."

"No I don't."

"Yes, you did!"

"Katsu! Quit talking," Kakashi interrupted. "Is something wrong back there?"

"No sir," Sakura and Shawn answered at the same time.

"Good." Kakashi returned to making the daily announcements. Sakura glared one last time at Shawn before turning back around.

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

"I can't _believe _this. _Why _would he ever do this?!" Sakura slammed her locker shut. Neji and Sasuke were leaning against the lockers next to her's, a scowl on both their faces.

"Because he's a creep?" Neji suggested.

"Ugh, don't remind me."

"Whatever the reason, we all know it's not good… I mean, it's Elrid. Of course it's not," said Neji.

Sakura nodded.

"Aight, well, I have to get to math class now, so I'll see you guys around." Neji disappeared into the crowds of people that filled the busy hallway. Sakura gazed at Sasuke, who remained silent, but looked deep in thought.

"Sasuke…"

He looked at her, giving her a small smile. Oh, how gorgeous he was when he smiled…

Sakura mentally slapped herself. _Focus_, she told herself, _I need to focus._

"I'm fine, Katsu. Let's go to class."

The classes before lunch went by quickly, for she had no more encounters with Shawn. But it wasn't until lunch did the real trouble start happening.

Sakura had barely set down her tray when she caught sight of a certain icy blue-eyed person carrying a tray, making his way to her table. Panic quickened her heartbeat.

"Hey, Katsu," Shawn said nonchalantly, placing his tray down in front of her. "What's up?"

"Nothing's up. Go away." Sakura sat down, hoping he would actually listen to her this time.

"Aww, c'mon… Why so mean?"

"I thought she told you to go away." Sasuke placed a firm grip on Shawn's shoulder, preventing him from moving any further.

"Stop touching me, Uchiha." Any traces of the fear that she had heard in Shawn's voice just yesterday in the mens' restroom was gone. It was like yesterday had never even happened.

Shawn attempted to remove Sasuke hand from his shoulder, but in a flash, Sasuke had pulled him back and punched him hard in the face; the impact threw Shawn onto the lunch table, nearly knocking over Sakura's lunch. Gasps and whispers erupted throughout the cafeteria as myriad heads turned to watch the fight. Neji and the others stood by, making no move to stop the enraged Sasuke.

"Oh, you fucking Uchihas think you're all so superior and shit! Whatta load of fuck," Shawn yelled, wiping away the thin stream of blood trickling from his mouth with the back of his hand. He lunged for Sasuke, bringing the both of them tumbling onto another table, spilling cartons of milk and scattering plates of pizzas all over the table and floor. Sasuke kicked Shawn off of him and onto the floor, where Sasuke held him down*, repeatedly hitting him on the face. Suddenly, Shawn pushed Sasuke to the side and rolled onto him, struggling to keep him pinned down. Then he spat. On Sasuke's face.

"There, you shithead, not so superior now, are we? I hope you know how it feels when—"

Sasuke had broken free from Shawn's grasp and punched him in the chest, sending him crashing into the table a few feet behind him. He used the other hand to wipe his face clean. Gasping for air, Shawn rose to his feet, but he wasn't standing for long; Sasuke was already on top of him again, showering him with heavy blows to the face.

"Sasuke, quit it! Stop fighting!" Sakura tugged on Sasuke's arm, but it was useless.

"You get the fuck away from her," Sasuke said between his punches. "I don't want to see you near her ever again."

"Sasuke, I said to stop it!"

He stopped, removing himself from Shawn. Shawn didn't move.

"… Too bad," Shawn smirked, his lips a bloody mess.

Before Sasuke could throw himself on top of Shawn again, Neji grabbed onto Sasuke to hold him back.

"Enough, Sasuke. You're going to kill the bastard."

Sasuke opened his mouth to say something, but he was interrupted by the booming voice of the principal.

"Uchiha! Elrid! Into the office _right this moment_!"

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Sakura let out a long sigh. Today was the worst day of her entire life. Nothing—absolutely _nothing_—could possibly make her feel better. Rolling over on her bed, she racked her brain for happy thoughts. Her mind began to replay the kiss from last night, when Sasuke had told her that he loved her back. Sakura closed her eyes, letting her fingers linger on her lips. Did that really happen? She was sure it wasn't a dream, but it definitely felt like one. Not in a million years did she expect to Uchiha to _love her_. Maybe like her a little bit—as a friend—but never _love _her. That, to her, was unfathomable. Why would he ever love her?

"Where is little brother?"

Sakura nearly leaped out of her bed in shock. She found herself staring into the crimson eyes of none other than Itachi, who was about a yard away from her bed.

"Oh my God, you scared the hell out of me."

"I apologize. Where is little brother?"

"He has detention. He won't be back until 6… So in about five or six minutes."

Itachi didn't budge. "This is the first time he has received a dentention."

"He got in a fist fight during lunch," Sakura mumbled. Itachi was starting to freak her out, especially the way he just stared at her with his creepy blood-red eyes, never blinking. She was afraid to move.

"Foolish little brother."

Sakura didn't know what else to say. Would he just stand there until Sasuke came back to save her from his horrifying brother? Or would he leave soon, as she was hoping?

"Er, so do you need anything else?" Sakura asked meekly.

Itachi didn't answer. Instead, he inched closer to the bed, never tearing his eyes off of her. He stopped a foot away.

"You are a very interesting person, Sakura."

"Uh, thank you?"

"You and little brother seem to be very close."

"Yes, we're pretty good friends." She didn't know what he was getting at. Did he know about their relationship? Or was he merely making an observation?

Itachi remained silent for a few more seconds before he said, "Keep him happy." Then, he slowly walked out of her room and disappeared from sight once he reached the hallway. Sakura fell back onto her pillow and let out her breath that she was holding. Itachi was _such_ a creep, but he seemed to do well for his brother. Hah—_she_ was an interesting person? Itachi was even more interesting, with his dark room and mysterious exterior. How did Sasuke grow up with such a weird brother…

"Sakura?" This time, it was Sasuke's voice. She abruptly sat up, hoping she didn't look as unkempt as she thought she did.

"Hey, how was it?"

"It wasn't too bad. Made us repaint the gym walls, which explains why it took two hours to finish."

"Ouch. That sucks." Sakura patted the spot next to her on the bed, motioning for Sasuke to come sit by her. He did.

"They had to take Elrid to the infirmary. The fucking prick deserved it."

Sakura laughed. "I'm glad you stood up for me, but I started to feel bad for him after about the ninth punch."

"He still deserved it."

"Sure." Sakura slid her arms around his neck and buried her head into his chest, inhaling his fresh pine tree scent and enjoying the feel of his arms around her waist.

"Sasuke?" Her voice was muffled by his shirt.

"Yes?"

"Do you honestly like me or is it all a joke?"

He removed his arms from around her. Oh, God, what was going to happen now? Was he going to say it really was a joke?

Instead, he cupped her face in his hands and leaned in to kiss her. Her heart jumped a little, as she was both delighted and surprised. Instead of pulling away after a few seconds, Sasuke pushed her back onto the bed, pinning her down. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she pulled him harder against her, loving the feel of his chiseled chest and six pack through his shirt. Suddenly, she felt the tip of his tongue slide across her lower lip. On impulse, she parted her lips and he slid his tongue into her mouth, creating a completely new sensation that shot throughout her body that caused her to let out a soft moan. She met his tongue with her own, but she let him dominate as their tongues swirled and flicked against each other. He tangled his fingers in Sakura's hair, deepening the kiss even more every time she moaned.

When he pulled away, they were both panting heavily.

"Does that answer your question, Sakura?"

Looking into his obsidian eyes, she nodded and smiled.

"There you are, little brother."

Sakura would've jumped ten feet in the air if Sasuke had not been on top of her.

"Itachi," Sasuke mumbled. He pushed himself off of Sakura and slid out of her bed.

"Was I interrupting anything?" Itachi asked. Sakura blushed. She could've sworn Itachi's voice held a tone of amusement.

"No, you weren't," Sasuke said. "What do you need?"

"Oh, nothing. I'll be going now." Itachi turned around and exited the room.

"The man always scares the fuck out of me," said Sakura.

" I don't blame you," Sasuke muttered as he climbed back onto the bed and lay down next to her. She leaned in to give him a short, chaste kiss.

Suddenly, her cellphone vibrated. She reached over to the night stand, flipping it open.

"Hmm… I got a text message from…" Sakura trailed off as she began to read the message. A second later, she sat up and put her head in her hands.

"Shit," she said.

"What happened? What's wrong?" Sasuke picked up her phone to read the text message out loud.

"_I hope you're happy with what happened today because I can assure you, your identity is going to be in great jeopardy. _

_-Shawn"_

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

**Author's Note: Whew! I'm so proud of this chapter, because it's the first time I've written:**

**A fighting scene**

**A make out scene**

**Hehehehe. I quite enjoyed it, and I hope you did as well :D **

**It was also surprising how I wrote this in a day ._.**

**Ah well, maybe I can crank out chapters like that everyday, but don't count on it xD**

**Much love,**

**Tia**


	26. Chapter 22

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. **

**Chapter 22**

"Katsu…you're a girl?"

"Katsu is a girl? Is it true?"

"He's a _girl_? I always knew there was something strange about him…Or _her_, should I say."

"Katsu's a girl!"

Everyone in the classroom around her shot accusing glares toward her. Panic and frustration began to pour into her mind as she backed away from the others. What could she say? Deny it? Would they believe her?

"It's true… And she goes by the name of Haruno Sakura."

She turned around to find the source of the voice, facing none other than the icy blue eyes of Shawn.

"Why?" she pleaded.

Shawn smirked. "This is what you get, Sakura."

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Sakura eyes snapped open. Nothing but the glow of red numbers in the darkness. 2:44 am.

_It was only a dream_.

She rose to a sitting position. _It was only a dream_.

As she slid out of her bed, she grabbed her phone from the night stand and flipped it open. The text message was still there. That part wasn't a dream, as much as she hoped it would be. Sakura opened up her laptop lid, triggering it out of standby, and waited for AIM to sign her on. Once she was online, she scrolled down her buddy list, into the 'Offline Buddies' section, until she saw "(/) Cean Chaffit". Then she unblocked him.

As she suspected, the little AIM box popped up—"Cean Chaffit has signed on." Only Shawn would be online at this ungodly hour.

**SakKicksAss16**: hey.

**Cean Chaffit**: sakura? you actually unblocked me?

**Cean Chaffit**: and what're you doing up so late?

**SakKicksAss16**: i got your txt message :P

**Cean Chaffit**: oh... figures. well, what are you going to say to me?

**Cean Chaffit**: that you hate me?

**Cean Chaffit**: that your stupid little sasuke is going to come kick my ass?

**SakKicksAss16**: no, shawn, i just want to say that…

**SakKicksAss16**: that i'm sorry, i guess…

She stared at the screen, waiting for a response. A full minute later, he finally replied.

**Cean Chaffit**: too bad. i'm not accepting.

**SakKicksAss16**: what? why?

**Cean Chaffit**: because its not sincere. you're only doing this to save yourself.

**Cean Chaffit**: i doubt you actually mean it.

**SakKicksAss16**: shawn, please.

**Cean Chaffit**: hmm… i'll maybe accept your apology if…

Sakura hoped it wasn't anything bad. She wasn't in the mood for Shawn's stupid games right now, especially at three in the morning.

**Cean Chaffit**: if we can talk about it on the phone.

**SakKicksAss16**: done. i'll call you.

Grabbing her phone from the desk, she dialed Shawn's number. A full three rings sounded before he picked up.

"Helllooo?"

"Hi."

"Hey, Saku. What's up?"

"Why did you want to talk on the phone?"

"Because I wanted to hear your voice again."

Sakura contemplated hanging up right then when she thought the better of it. If she did, he probably wouldn't forgive her and he would tell everyone her secret. Every one of her next actions and words would determine his decision.

"Great," she said. "Right. I'll say sorry on the phone, too, if you want. Just so you know that I actually really do mean it."

Then she heard a sigh.

"Sakura… I wanted to talk on the phone so that I could say I'm sorry instead."

_What?_

"This better not be a joke, Shawn. Or I'm hanging up."

"Jesus, Sakura, I'm trying to apologize to you. It's not easy."

"Go on," she mumbled. Maybe he actually did mean it.

"Okay, well, I'm sorry I kissed you and beat up your boyfriend at the dance."

Well _that_ was a genuine apology.

"But," he continued, "I don't know why else you're being such a bitch to me. He attacked me first. And plus, it's been a whole week since we talked. I thought—"

"Shawn. Shawn, tell me _why_ you're acting like such a creep. First you kiss me without my permission and then you try to find me in the freakin' _mens_' bathroom and then you join my school and then you threaten to reveal my _identity_? Isn't that a bit far for me being mad at you?"

"I… I just wanted to talk to you."

"Then you're the one who's being an idiot!" Sakura looked over at the door, afraid that she might've woken someone up with her yelling.

"I said I was sorry! You're the one overreacting. You didn't even give me a chance to apologize after the dance. Why the hell are you so damn angry?"

She paused. Should she tell him about what Sasuke had told her? That he sex'd girls up like they were nothing but his toys? Maybe that would be a legitimate excuse that could bring the conversation to an end.

"Because I feel like I don't know you anymore? Maybe that's why. And maybe you should stop being such a player."

"A player?"

"Stop playing dumb, I know about how you've fucked a billion girls who weren't even your girlfriends."

"Who told you about that?"

So it was true.

"I'm not stupid, you know. Everyone knows who you are and I figured out why people don't like you. And plus, I hear you tried to _rape_ someone?"

"Sakura…" Shawn took a deep breath. "Listen, none of this concerns you, alright? I'd never try to hurt you. We're best friends. Or at least we used to be…"

"Of course it concerns me! This is why I say I feel like I don't know you anymore… I thought you were better than that." Sakura couldn't believe he was trying to avoid the subject, especially with her.

"How about this, then. We meet to talk about it tomorrow after school at… Let's say, Starbucks. The one closest to the academy. Okay?"

Hesitating, she didn't know whether she could trust him or not. Was he planning something? Or did he actually want to see her to discuss it?

"Sakura, I know what you're thinking, but I swear, it's _not like that_. And Starbucks is a really public place with a lot of people in it all the time."

Sakura sighed. He was right.

"Fine."

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

The next morning, Sakura woke up bedraggled and sleep-deprived, evident through her bloodshot eyes. Following her morning routine, she hastily downed a steaming cup of coffee and drove to school in Shen's limousine. At school, people were whispering about yesterday's fight in the cafeteria; this caused a knot to form in her stomach, for she was not comfortable with Shawn's presence at school, especially when he would cause a big scene like he did yesterday. By advisory, the tension between Sasuke and Shawn had grown to be almost unbearable, but Shawn, knowing that he shouldn't cause trouble after last night's conversation, did not attempt to start a conversation with Sakura. Instead, he spent his advisory time laying his head down on the desk, seeming to be asleep. The rest of the school day seemed to go by smoothly: at lunch, Shawn did not bother to sit with them; in history class, he sat across the room from her; and in English class, he did the same. After the last bell of the day rang, Sakura knew where she had to go, but she couldn't tell the others, knowing they would prevent her from being "alone" with a potential rapist of a teenage boy.

When Sakura closed her locker after getting all of her books and binders into her messenger bag, she found Sasuke leaning against the locker right next to her.

"What are you doing right now? Naruto and the other want to go somewhere to hang out for a while. Maybe Jamba Juice."

Great, she thought. Getting away from them wouldn't be as easy as she thought.

"Oh, uh, I'm just thinking about going home and starting on a…an English project. It's due tomorrow." Sakura let out a weak laugh. "Silly me, I'm such a procrastinator."

Sasuke eyed her doubtfully. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah? Why wouldn't I be?"

"Nothing…You just seemed kind of quiet today."

"Oh, hah, I'm alright. No need to worry about good ol' Katsu over here." Sakura wanted to punch herself. She was such a bad liar. Or maybe it was just hard lying to the gorgeous teenage boy standing in front of her, knowing that they had had an amazing make out session just last night…

Sakura mentally slapped herself. _Focus_, she told herself.

"Uh, okay. I'll see you at home at around seven, then."

They turned away, walking in separate directions. Sakura hurried to the carpool area, scanning the crowds of students for Shawn. A few moments later, she heard a loud, but short honk coming from a very familiar looking black car beside her…

The tinted window rolled down to reveal Shawn. She climbed into the passenger seat.

"So I heard you and your friends were supposed to go somewhere?" Shawn said as they pulled out of the parking lot.

"Eavesdropping, are we?" She shot an accusing glare in his direction. He had his eyes on the road.

"Nah, I just overheard when I walked past you guys. Jamba Juice, did he say?"

"…yeah."

"Sakura, you realize that's in the same shopping center as the Starbucks we're going to, right?"

"Oh," she replied. "Then where should we go?"

"We'll go to the Starbucks closest to Shen's house, then."

The ride lasted a short seven or so minutes before he parked in front of the semi-crowded coffee shop. As usual, there were a couple of middle aged men on their Macs, a few mom's chatting, college students hanging around in the booth, and a few teenage girls giggling over their frappucinos*. Sakura followed Shawn in, a wave of warmth and the comfortable scent of coffee washing over them. The teenage girls looked up, checking both of them out.

"What do you want? My treat." Shawn pulled out his black leather wallet.

"I'll just have tall green tea frappucino," she replied, not feeling bad at all for spending Shawn's money. He ordered the drink, along with his own order of a latte, and they took a seat at a secluded round table near the back corner of the café.

"So," Sakura began as she sipped her drink, "start with the explanation."

Shawn paused. "Everything you heard is true."

Her jaw dropped. "Even the part about you raping someone?"

"Oh, no, everything _except_ the raping part. That rumor was probably the result of people wanting to worsen my reputation."

"Okay… Well…"

"So you're wondering what happened to me after I moved here to Konoha?"

Sakura nodded.

"I moved out of Suna for a reason. Rather, my mother wanted to move out of Suna for a reason. I don't know if you… heard, but my father's dead, Sakura."

She almost choked on her drink. "God, I didn't know. How did he…?"

"Killed."

This time, she did choke on her drink. Through coughs she managed to say, "Who would do that?"

"Let me finish. He was killed by a hired assassin, and I know for sure that the person who hired him was an _Uchiha_," he spat out the name acridly, "and they succeeded in their goal of making my father's company nearly die out. The business world is a corrupt place Sakura, don't look so shocked. It happens all the time."

"But the Uchihas wouldn't do that!" Sakura exclaimed. "They…They…"

"They what? I doubt you know a thing about Uchiha Fugaku. My father's company used to be Uchiha Corporation's biggest rival. Of course, the stupid second child of Fugaku is stupid as hell and doesn't know anything about the assassination. In fact, I doubt Fugaku really even cared himself. All that bastard wants is wealth and power…"

Shawn looked out of the window as he swished around his drink. He took a sip and then continued. "Anyway, we moved to Konoha for two reasons: one, because my mother was scared shitless, and two, because we wanted to find a cheaper place to live. My father's permanent absence hit our family's income hard. And in Konoha, my mother found has found a different man, the man who's now my stepfather."

Sakura noticed the way Shawn's tone became especially spiteful when he mentioned his stepfather.

"Even though that man has helped us come out of debt, he's a fucking arse. I hate him. And he hates me, too." Shawn hesitated, then leaned in and whispered, "He's a fucking arse because he beats me a lot."

Sakura remained silent, but his whisper was like a blow to the stomach. Stepfather? _Abusive_ stepfather? She had no idea…

"So, Sakura, this is my excuse: I go about and smoke and drink and have sex with girls because it's my only escape. This has what happened to me. Maybe _this_ is why I'm such a fucking creep, okay? I'm sorry. When I saw you again, I thought…"

The calm and friendly ambience of the café contrasted greatly with the bitter tone of Shawn's voice, but they were in a place where no one could hear them.

"I thought maybe things wouldn't be so bad. And I really like you, Sakura."

"Shawn…" She didn't know how to take this. "I can't… We can't be together. Let's just stay friends…"

"What is it? Oh, let me guess. It's the Uchiha, isn't it?" A frown played on Shawn's lips.

"…Yes."

"Well speak of the devil…" Shawn's eyes were on a person behind Sakura, who was slowly approaching them. She turned around in her seat, and sure enough, it was Sasuke.

"Sakura…What are you doing here—with _him_?"

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

**Author's Note: *I probably would be one of the few teenage girls giggling over her frappucino. More specifically, a strawberries and cream frappucino. **

**Ohehehehe. **

**I wrote this one in a day… Hmm.. I do see a very nice trend going on here xD**

**But yeah, I wouldn't count in it ********. Have a nice day.**

**Love,**

**Tia**


	27. Chapter 23

**Diclaimer: I don't own Naruto.**

**And OH GOD, I'm back! School's finally out and I'M BACK. Muahaha. I doubt any of my readers still remember this fanfiction though xD… It's been quite a while.**

**Anyway, I just realized that fanfiction has gotten rid of my page breaks? They used to be a series of zeroes, but it seems like I can't do that now **** And I'm too lazy to go back through all my chapters and redo the page breaks. So whatever.**

**Chapter 23**

Thoughts racing through her head, Sakura stared wide-eyed at Sasuke. Those thoughts consisted of: "_Shit_, what if he thinks something is up?", "How the hell did he know I was here?", and "What should I say?"

Shawn scooted his seat back and stood up. "We were just on a little date. In fact, we were just about to leave."

She shot Shawn an acrimonious glare and then looked at Sasuke. "It was definitely _not_ a date, Sasuke. We just had to talk about something important; I just think you caught us at a bad time."

"A bad time for _what_? It looks like a date to me. And plus, you said that you were working on an English project, so you clearly lied to me."

"Sasuke, can we just talk about this later? Like when I go back to your place?"

Shawn gave her an incredulous look. "Back to his place? What do you mean _back to his place_?"

At almost the same time, Sasuke hissed, "I don't see what's to talk about. You _lied_."

Sakura bit her lip. This was bad. The both of them were turned on her, expecting her to say something, but she couldn't. She felt like anything could worsen the situation at any moment, and that if she said the wrong things, it could result in another fight between Sasuke and Shawn. She started to chew on her lip.

"Whatever. I'm leaving. You guys can have your fun now." He turned away and walked to his limo, ignoring the look of disbelief on Sakura's face. She started to go after him, but Shawn grabbed her wrist, holding her back.

"Sakura, what is this? You're staying at the Uchiha household?"

She grimaced, trying to yank her arm back. "Yes. Shen can't let me stay at his house anymore, so I'm staying at Sasuke's. I don't see what the big deal is. Now let me go!"

He tightened his grip. "It is a big deal."

By that time, Sasuke's limo had almost reached the exit of the parking lot. She tried to make eye contact with him from afar, but he looked everywhere else but at her.

"No, it's _not_, let me _go!_" Sakura tore her arm away from his hand, stumbling back into another table. Their little spat had drawn the majority of the café's attention. Taking note of this, Shawn grabbed her again, this time leading her out of Starbucks and to his car.

"Stop struggling, for God's sake, I'm your only ride home anyway."

Realizing this, Sakura abruptly stopped trying to hit him with her other hand, and acquiescently climbed into the passenger seat. As he started the car, she remembered their conversation about his family and felt a tinge of guilt when the thought of whether he was telling the truth or not trickled into her mind. This put her in quite the dilemma, for she still wanted to be friends with Shawn, but she couldn't explain to Sasuke why—which only led her to think about how she was going to explain her and Shawn's so-called little "date" to him.

"Sakura," Shawn turned his head toward her as he slowed to a stop in front of a red light. "Just to let you know, if anything happens between you and the Uchiha, I'm always open. You know… if you ever want to."

She gave him a small, barely-there nod, feeling weird about this newfound consensus between the two.

The rest of the ride consisted of Shawn's alternative rock CDs blasting through the car and Sakura silently gazing outside the window. He pulled to a stop near the towering black Uchiha gates, not bothering to turn off the engine. Quickly, he reached over and took a hold of Sakura's hand before she could open the car door. She could only stare at his hand over hers.

"I'm better than him for you. You know that."

Pulling her hand away from his, she mumbled, "Thanks for the ride, Shawn", and climbed out of the car, but before she managed to shut the door, he said,

"Also, don't think I'm just going to sit back and watch."

She slammed the door shut, not responding.

* * *

Knocking loudly on Sasuke's bedroom door, Sakura raked her mind for something to say when he would open the door. How could she tell him the truth but still manage to keep Shawn's past a secret?

"He's not home."

She jumped violently and turned around slowly to face the older Uchiha brother. His sporadic appearances would be something she'd have to get used to.

"Ah. Where is he?"

"He is with his friends. I thought you were with him?"

"Er, not exactly. I saw him earlier, though."

Itachi's blood-red piercing gaze seemed to burn through her retinas.

"I mean," she gulped, "He left suddenly and I wanted to know where he went. I was with, uh, another friend."

Itachi didn't move.

"I don't know if you know him, but he's a classmate. His name is… Shawn?"

He slowly approached her. "_Elrid_?"

"…Yes?"

Sakura took a step back, but there was no room to back away but into Sasuke's bedroom door. At this point, Itachi was inches in front of her, staring down from a foot above her.

"Interesting", he muttered as he lifted his hand and placed it on her head, tousling her hair. Puzzled, Sakura just stared back up at him. His hand fell away.

"Your roots are growing out", he said, turned around, and walked down the hallway.

Her hand grasped her hair. Oh no. She made her way to her bedroom, examining her hair in the mirror. Sure enough, a hint of pink showed through the brown. Sakura cursed profusely, fumbling through her backpack for her cell phone. Flipping it open, she speed dialed Neji's number.

"Hello?" She could hear soft chattering in the background.

"Neji!"

"Sak—er, Katsu?"

"Hey, I'm assuming you're with everyone right now?"

"Yeah, we're at Jamba Juice. Why?"

"I need to re-dye my hair. My roots are growing back."

"Oh, don't worry. We'll make an appointment tomorrow. By the way, do you know if Sasuke's okay?"

"Um, yeah, why?"

"Oh, he just seems kind of moody now. He went to go pick something up from Shen's house cause Shen forgot something. He just came back and kinda looks pissed off."

"Huh. Strange."

"Yeah. Anyway, nah, don't worry. We'll get your hair done soon."

"Alright, thanks. See you later. Bye."

After they hung up, Sakura threw herself onto the bed. Closing her eyes, she contemplated what she could do, but eventually drifted off into a deep sleep.

* * *

It had been day two since the incident in Starbucks. Since that incident Sasuke had been ignoring the both of them, much to Sakura's dismay. On the other hand, Shawn had constantly been trying to talk to Sakura, but she had only responded in one or two worded answers.

"You realize he's never going to talk to you, right?" Shawn smirked as she slammed her locker shut.

"Look, Shawn, now isn't a good time."

"Oh, but _Katsu_, when will it be a good time? Come on, I thought we were friends now."

"Sure, we're friends", she said as she slung her messenger bag over her shoulder. "But right now isn't a good time."

As she tried to walk away, Shawn pushed her back into the lockers and placed both hands against the locker on each side of her head, and loomed over her, blocking her way out.

"It will _never_ be a good time for me unless you accept the fact that little Uchiha is going to ignore you for a while because you can't tell him the truth about me."

"Shawn, I appreciate your offer, but like I said, right now is _not_ a good time." Sakura tried pushing him away, but he wouldn't budge. At that moment, Sasuke strode past the two of them, without giving them so much of a glance.

"Why don't you just give me a chance, Sakura? Please? Otherwise, it's just not fair. Just one chance, just one date."

Sakura looked down. He was right. At least give him a chance, right? What hurt would that do? Sasuke at this point seemed like a hopeless cause, but still…

"Fine", she finally agreed. Shawn gawked, surprised at her final agreement. Pushing him away at last, she walked off to her class, wondering if what she just did was going to be something she would regret.

* * *

**Author's Note: Wow. Okay, sorry that was a bit short. Just wanted to get this out there. Honestly, this summer's going to be boring…and I know I haven't been following up on my promises about updating a lot whenever I get out of a hiatus, but whatever. I'm trying this time? Haha, and I don't have a lot of vacations this time, either. See you guys soon, hopefully!**

**Tia**


End file.
